Long Time Coming
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: Get John and Sherlock engaged they said. It'll be fun they said... Yes, well the first 'incident' occurred six days, eleven hours, and forty-two minutes before they got married; the last about twenty seconds before they walked down the aisle. What happened in between even I don't quite believe. I'm Aurora Aurelia Abbington, the skull on the mantle, and I have another story to tell.
1. Chapter 1

"You misspelt suck, you cretin!"

The first _incident_ occurred six days, eleven hours, and forty-two minutes before they got married.

"If you're going to grace the wall opposite this home with your jejune artistic vandalism—oh!"

Lanky body unceremoniously yanked back inside the flat, eight of Sherlock's spidery digits _just_ missed being slammed in the sitting room window.

"John, what are you—oof!"

He did _not_ miss getting John's shoulder applied to his solar plexus _or_ hitting the carpet at speed.

"John Hamish Watson _what are you doing?"_

What John Hamish Watson was doing—beside angrily planting his pajamad arse astride Sherlock's hips—was having_ enough _already.

"I've had enough already, Sherlock. You have been a _complete _prat for the entire eighteen hours—"

So help him, John paused.

"…and twenty eight minutes."

"—and twenty eight minutes since we got properly engaged, and leaning out the window, while wearing nothing but a flaccid dick and your righteous indignation, yelling at a sixteen stone tagger spraying rude words on the wall opposite, has successfully just trod on my last frayed nerve."

Flat on his back, righteous indignation all _over_ his pretty face, Sherlock scowled up at John but wisely said nothing, not one damn thing. Because no one, including Sherlock, could _possibly _begrudge John even a single one of his thread-bare nerves.

Kindly attend.

In the week just passed John Watson had been giddily engaged and then abruptly _unengaged_ almost immediately after.

As a result, John had poured his proud heart out in a remarkable letter to Sherlock, one that was perhaps the single most important factor in changing the course of both their lives forever.

As a direct result of _that_ he'd half-near broke his own heart by causing Sherlock to fall to his knees weeping in the middle of Angelo's.

John had then become vigorously engaged again and proceeded to sob so hard he'd had to breathe into a paper bag for five minutes.

And after _that_ John'd gone on to shag his drunken fiancé on their kitchen table so relentlessly that they both required three paracetamol and a good lie-down after.

And finally, _finally,_ he'd had to literally tackle Sherlock to the floor to prevent him from ordering a vicar online ("No job too big, no event too small, we'll marry you anywhere!) so that they could be married that day. ("But _why_ can't we?" "Because Mrs. Hudson would kill us with extreme malice and then give our corpses a good talking to you idiot!")

So yes, no one, least of all Sherlock, was going to begrudge John the state of even one of his tatty nerves. And yet…

"John, John, _Joooooohn."_

If any six foot man can have a two-year-old's tantrum while stretched out on the carpet and held down by his fiancé's bottom, Sherlock Holmes is that man.

"We can't change the date you big git so just _stop _asking and _stop _venting your spleen at giant tattooed taggers _who know where we live—"_

John wriggled his bum, the bum firmly planted across his fiancé's recently-used-and-currently-resting bits. "—and who would probably take a quite vigorous interest in the consulting cock you've been waving to the four winds like a giddy stripper."

To put a full stop to his rant John wiggled his arse again, crossed his arms, and said, "All right then?"

Sherlock stuffed his thumb nail into his mouth and kind of chewed on it.

John, not getting it at all, wriggled once again, harumphed this time, then said, "I can't hear you."

Sherlock tugged his finger out of his mouth and said softly, "John."

"Sherlock, don't do it."

"John."

"I'm warning you."

"John."

"If you ask me one more time why we can't get married _now_ I'm going to draw an anatomically-detailed diagram of how Mrs. Hudson will take us apart and where she'll hide the pieces, then I—"

Sherlock underscored his next dramatic _"John,"_ with a clarifying shove of his hips.

John closed his mouth. Then opened it in a perfect little, "Oh."

In the last eighteen hours and thirty two minutes there had proved to be several side-effect to John and Sherlock's becoming re-engaged.

Kindly attend.

Hearts-brimming, kiss-everyone joy was the first and by far the most expected.

The appearance of Even More Annoying Than Usual Sherlock, who wanted nothing more than to get John to the alter _before he changed his mind,_ was the second.

John was fidgeting on the third: Suddenly there were damned erections _everywhere._ No, seriously, it was as if they'd gone on special offer and the boys had stocked up.

"You can't be hard again," whispered the good doctor, squirming on the thing that _could,_ indeed, be hard again. "It's possibly not possible and maybe not even safe."

Sherlock made no verbal reply, though he throbbed his dissent in a place that had, in the last eighteen hours, become notable for its throbbing. John responded with an automatic arse-wiggle over the noted area.

Speaking of which…

"I can't go another round, love. I really don't think my arse can take it."

They both blinked at each other, suddenly fixated on John's arse _taking it._

"I mean…not that we can't…there's always other things we could…" John completed this elucidating thought by pushing two fingers into Sherlock's mouth. In response Sherlock sucked so hard he took John in up to the last knuckle.

They both blinked at each other, suddenly fixated on Sherlock taking John in up to the last knuckle.

Yes, well all right then.

_Other things_ it would be.

Being as none of John's fingers were yet as sore as John's bum, everyone happily let Sherlock fellate those digits for a good long time. While Sherlock sucked, John did his part by pumping those fingers into and out of his lover's mouth. Sherlock made it worth John's while by moaning darkly and taking those fingers in so deep it would trigger the gag reflex in any normal person.

(It had been proven nine hours previous—after the table-top shag, but before the one on the stairwell—that when properly aroused neither John nor Sherlock seemed to have a gag reflex at all or any but the most basic oxygen requirements.)

Ordinarily a little finger sucking won't really get anyone in 221B anywhere particularly fast or easy. However, for the next week—after the engagement but before the wedding—life in 221B is going to be far from ordinary and the men inside are going to be the very definition of fast and easy. Early and often. Hard and deep. As well as "do it again," "oh dear god," "did you just come twice?" and "I think I sprained something."

So though, ordinarily, a bit of finger fucking is just a precursor to other things, today it was _the _thing. For Sherlock.

Grabbing at the carpet with two hands, shoving at it with the soles of both feet, the good detective let it be known to anyone within hearing distance—and at his volume, that was the entire block of flats and probably the tagger across the street—that if there was something better than half of John's hand thrust down his throat and fingering his glottis he couldn't possibly imagine what it was.

John, meanwhile, was enthralled. Because if anyone could embody dramatically sexy as all god damn hell when he wanted to that anybody was Sherlock. It was all John could do to not simply grab hold of himself and start wanking.

Not that he didn't try, because he did. But frankly he couldn't get purchase, not with Sherlock bumping his bulge up against John's beleaguered arse, eventually becoming so vigorous in his devotions that the good doctor was on tempestuous seas indeed.

However, things didn't last long.

When Sherlock's lips started trembling around John's fingers the good doctor knew his lover was close. John's response of course was to simply grow _denser,_ specifically in the region of his behind, thereby providing Sherlock access to greater friction.

John was rewarded for this largesse with pretty teeth marks on his knuckles and the hot, wet sensation of Sherlock coming against his cloth-covered arse.

If John had been keeping count—he wasn't—he'd have noted that this was Sherlock's fourth orgasm in the last eighteen-plus hours. He'd also record the fact that this was his fifth erection in the same period. (Sherlock too has had five erections in the last day, but sometimes, just sometimes, you have to thigh-strangle the things into submission and talking to your landlady about the merits of ascots over ties is indeed one of those times.)

Anyway, John's not tracking these things, instead he's wondering if everyone else who's ever gotten engaged after an intense fling with grave emotional turmoil has had to deal with not one but two libidos gone wild. He's intensely curious about this but will probably never know because it's not precisely tea and scones conversation. And besides, he's English and generally the English pretend that other English do not have sex.

That's neither here nor there. What _is_ here right now is John's fifth erection in the last eighteen-plus hours. What John would like to dispatch as soon as possible is his fifth erection in the last eighteen-plus hours.

After a nice leisurely refractory period of forty-eight seconds Sherlock was ready for another mouthful. He made this clear by flipping John onto his back, tugging his jim-jams down, and shoving John's cock in his mouth.

John's response was a full-body rash of goosebumps and a shout of, "God yes!"

That shouting gave Sherlock an idea and that idea was to turn around until his can-you-even-believe-it, erect cock was hovering over John's face.

"Yes," said the good doctor, never not up for a mouthful of consulting detective.

With an arch of the neck and a groan he took his fiancé all the way in, and then to complete the (short) circuit, got in his fiancé by sliding two unlubed fingers into one slick hole.

It was _that—_the knowledge that Sherlock was still wet from this morning's languorous shag—that took John from half-hard to all hard.

And it was _that_—John growing heavy and thick in his mouth—that took the world's only fiancé'd consulting detective from all hard to coming for the second time in five minutes.

And, good lord, it was _that—_usually-slow-burning Sherlock, who can raise the sexual frustration level of the whole street, teetering on such a hair trigger—that had John planting his feet firmly on the floor so he could get his coming cock as deeply into that voluptuous, greedy mouth as possible. Which, apparently, was very.

It was exactly twenty eight seconds after pulling his mouth off John with a slurp—Sherlock was proud of the length of his restraint—that a certain consulting detective said, "I'm not sure you know this John, and it's merely by way of _information,_ but the City of Westminster Magistrate Court, which is only zero point six miles from this spot, have openings this afternoon for civil partnership ceremonies at two fifteen, three forty five and four pm. Now, so long as we're discreet and don't _tell_ anyone—"

John shoved his dick back into Sherlock's mouth. It was the only way he could think of to shut the man up.

…

Get the boys engaged they said. It'll be fun they said…

Consulting lunatics leaning out windows bare bones naked started off the next six days, seven hours and fifteen minutes, and to everyone's hand-over-heart-dear-god-this-was-a-long-time-coming relief a very perfect wedding will end them.

And in between there will occur many, many conventional things. Tuxedos will be fitted, invitations made, and a guest list drawn. Wedding cakes will be sampled, stag parties thrown, and a vicar selected.

And because 221B contains two quite different but remarkably complimentary kinds of crazy, between now and the nuptials there will occur also many, many, _many_ unconventional things.

After John and Sherlock's engagement but before their wedding there will be a very public argument about flowers. There will be an illicit kiss, inappropriate touching, and an infeasible number of erections. Mrs. Hudson will get drunk and disorderly, a threatening phone call will be made, and ten men will go to the opera. In dresses.

And there will be me, there is always me. I'm Aurora Aurelia Abbington, the skull on the mantle, the Greek chorus, the keeper of the inmates. And I have another tale to tell.

Are you ready?

Are you?

Please…_someone_ has to be.

_Write a stag party fic Diane Duane said, it'll be fun she said. I thought so too, then to double the dare asked you to kindly provide words I must use in the story. Of the fifteen chosen, jejune, tempestuous, and fidget appear here—thank you Jomk, Sherlockscarf, and Suchanadorer. And thank you times a thousand, Verity Burns, for another flawless double entendre title. So…what exactly do _you_ folks think happens over the next seven days?_


	2. Chapter 2

Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson is a terrible planner.

This was first dramatically proven by her elopement, a life-changing event to which she gave twenty minutes advanced thought and approximately ten minutes of planning, if planning can be generously defined as getting her knickers back on, straightening her dress, patting her beau's bum, and walking hand-in-hand with him to the registrar's office.

While the elopement itself went off without difficulty, the resulting marriage, as a few may know, did not ultimately turn out as planned.

Fortunately Lizzy's learned a thing or two since then.

Mostly my dear girl has learned that, though she's still a bad planner, you can _buy _the time of those who are better at it.

"There's very little time, I'm afraid."

"Which means much money will be needed to make things run smoothly."

"I do think so."

"Then please feel free, dear lady, to spend with a profligacy that would shame a sultan."

Mrs. Hudson glanced out the window of 221A and smiled. She didn't wonder why the man on the other end of the phone sometimes felt the need to impress her, she simply accepted that the man on the other end of the phone sometimes felt the need to impress her.

Mycroft did this with extravagant words mostly, but sometimes with an extravagant gesture, such as contacting her two hours after John and Sherlock's engagement became official and enquiring as to whether she had ideas on the planning of the Holmes-Watson wedding.

"I do," she said, without even a touch of irony.

If a man can sigh in relief without making the actual sound, Lizzy heard Mycroft do so.

"I thought you might. If you have time tomorrow morning, perhaps we could discuss the practicable options in planning these short-notice nuptials?"

That Mycroft engaged in the fiction that his schedule was at the mercy of hers pleased my Lizzy.

"Mr. Holmes—"

"Please, call me Mycroft."

"I'll expect your car very early, Mycroft."

…

The second incident occurred six days and thirty minutes before Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes got married. That Dr. Watson was not aware that the incident was occurring, _as it occurred,_ says much about his state of mind at the time.

"—palm of your hand in minutes, John, that was impressive."

Fidgeting in a rather plush chair on the other side of Greg Lestrade's desk, John nodded distractedly and crossed his legs.

"—and the new recruits really liked you, especially when—"

The good doctor was still for several seconds. He then uncrossed his legs, thought about it, and recrossed them _harder._

"—a regular thing. A paid position if you thought—."

As John strangled his half-hard cock between doctorly thighs, he wondered what Sherlock was doing.

"—maybe once-a-month. Think about it, maybe talk to—"

John wished he was doing Sherlock.

"—it shouldn't take that long if I cross all my ts and dot my—"

The good doctor tried not to think about how many times and in how many ways he'd done his lanky, eager love in the last twenty-something hours because doing so would do nothing for the semi-erect state of his cock. As a diversionary tactic John wondered if Sherlock was still angry with him.

"—never a good extemporaneous speaker myself, but—"

Well angry was probably not the right word. They'd just finished doing that unexpected thing on the sitting room floor and John was pretty sure they were on their way to starting another thing entirely on the coffee table, when his mobile chirped.

"—sort of speech class really, but the teacher said I should just stick to—"

Sherlock had his pretty canines lodged firmly in John's neck so the good doctor did not at first hear the little electronic bird trilling, the one reminding him he had a pending appointment. It wasn't until the trilling morphed into a deep-voiced _shut up!_—Sherlock's sneaky addition to the alarm last month—that John began to focus.

"—Haddad did too, but he didn't like it either, so when you offered—"

That's when the good doctor tugged his sweetheart's squirmy middle finger out of his beleaguered bum and told his softly grunting love that he had to go. And _that's_ when Sherlock learned John was heading to the Yard. Without him.

"—but you're a natural. Doesn't surprise me at all really when you consider—"

It didn't matter to Sherlock that John'd promised Greg months ago that he'd be a guest lecturer. All a certain consulting detective knew was that his brand new fiancé would be somewhere that he was not.

"—show the more human side of criminal investigation—"

For Sherlock, being relentlessly aroused was not the only side-effect to becoming engaged. There was also a vast and demanding clinginess, accompanied by a breathless certainty that this was all too good to be true.

"—so the detective superintendent suggested I offer you—"

So when John attempted to remove his sternocleidomastoid muscle from his one true love's teeth and rise from the floor, that limpet-like love had reinserted not one, but _two_ fingers and thrown a long leg over John's hip for good measure.

"—shouldn't think it'd be hard to arrange, so let me talk to the appropriate—"

John tried to calculate how much time he had before he'd technically be late, but the thing going on at his back end—_there, right there, that, that!—_was turning his brain to mush. It wasn't until his mobile chirped a second, louder reminder, that the good doctor finally focused.

"—so have you thought about one? It could be fun and they _can_ be classy things if—"

Where he found the will-power he doesn't know and why he thought it'd save time to invite Sherlock to shower with him John can not say, but he had and he did. And wouldn't it just figure that they were under the hot spray for less than twenty seconds before they were jerking each other off.

"—a party. I don't know why bachelor dos are usually don'ts but—"

It was a slippery business and they nearly fell three times, but John didn't install that grab rail last year for no reason. So, one grunting the other groaning, both clutching and tugging, each man was pretty much eight seconds away from firing off all over everything.

"—and mine was awful. Then again I was only twenty and half the lads were younger than that, which doesn't really excuse what happened when—"

Then Mrs. Hudson showed up.

"—though like I said, they can be classy. It's not all stripper poles and bad booze if you don't want it to be. I'd image that you and Sherlock—"

As in showed up _right inside their loo._

"—but the point is to let friends be excited for you, you know?"

Silhouetted on the other side of the shower curtain, their landlady—the woman who was instrumental in getting them together and would be the lynchpin causing their impending nuptials to go off without a hitch—sort of _yoo-hooed_ loudly over the water's splash.

"To show the world you love someone enough to be with them for—"

Soapy hands wrapped around each other's hard-ons, a detectivey middle finger right back where it wasn't supposed to be, both John and Sherlock went breathless, wide-eyed, and still.

"—sometimes he pretends he doesn't care what they think, but we both know he—"

Though they didn't immediately reply, they nevertheless quickly learned that Mycroft's car was waiting at the kerb and that Sherlock had conveniently forgotten his tuxedo fitting. The one that was in ten minutes.

"—we can plan something you both like. Or maybe even have two parties instead of—"

John looked down at Sherlock's hand on his cock.

"—invite just a few guys, keep it small. Sherlock's brother for example—"

Sherlock looked down at John's hand on _his_ cock.

"—and the big guy, your med school buddy, Stamford?"

It says much that despite that small silhouette on the other side of the shower curtain both men contemplated finishing what they'd started.

"—maybe Haddad, Pete, and Angelo—"

John decided for both of them by pushing back on that inquisitive finger and beginning to again stroke fast.

"—a nice dinner there actually. Except I suppose that wouldn't be a party for—"

It was only once Mrs. Hudson loomed so close they could make out the tip of her nose through the curtain, that John and Sherlock unhanded one another.

"—and I've even got a new suit if we went to the opera or—"

As they dressed Mrs. Hudson stood outside the bedroom door, offering a running commentary on the day's tasks. There would be cake tasting, John's finery fitting later in the day, a dinner, and possibly drinks with a possible vicar.

"—and I don't know why he pretended he was pregnant—"

As he'd tugged his trousers over a mostly flaccid penis, the good and randy doctor noticed Sherlock was still at full mast.

"—but that was certainly not the weirdest stag party I've ever—"

Which was entirely more than John could take, so he sidled close and just as he got a handful of consulting cock Mrs. Hudson knocked a sweet little tune on their bedroom door.

"—but that one only resulted in one arrest. After that I always took the precaution of—"

The bedroom door that apparently wasn't latched.

"—and I think the more mild-mannered they are, the more dramatic it is when they fly off the rails—"

John had never zippered, buttoned, tucked, and turned so fast in his life. That Sherlock was still blindly humping the high curve of his fiancé's bum was something the good doctor hoped his landlady was too near-sighted to see.

"—don't know where they _found_ him on such short notice, but the manicures and pedicures were great, though I thought the glitter was—"

Mrs. Hudson could see just fine but she does a marvelous job of appearing flighty and oblivious when necessary. This was one of those times.

"—and we couldn't get the vicar to stop shouting obscenities, though of course—"

Sherlock had been three seconds from going off right there, in front of god and his landlady, but he did not get those three seconds.

"—should think it'd take more than a day to arrange, if you thought you'd want—"

No, neither man got what he wanted just then. And while each was muddling through a long morning, coping in his own way—John uncrossed then recrossed his legs again—they were both about to get a whole lot of something they didn't expect.

"—so what do think John? Are you game?"

The good doctor cleared his throat and finally focused on his friend. Uncertain if he'd missed anything important John looked Greg in the eye and smiled pleasantly. "Uh, sure?"

John Watson did not at that time know that he had agreed—on behalf of his intended and himself—to attend one, perhaps two bachelor parties in the next forty-eight hours.

…

"Let the nice man touch your crotch, dear."

Sherlock didn't hear those eight words because he was too busy fidgeting away from the nice man, who was on one knee and sliding forward each time Sherlock squirmed from his tape measure.

Lizzy was busy sipping her first tumbler of complimentary Talisker single malt, musing that she could get quite used to being chauffeured across London. Shame the boys would be married within the week. That was, if Sherlock would ever stand still.

"Sherlock, do stand still."

Sherlock Holmes didn't hear those four words because he was busy feinting left as the grey-haired tailor reached right. Anticipating the move, the nice man flawlessly sidled sideways. He'd been here before.

So had Sherlock, of course. My tall drink of water has been fitted for dozens of suits in his life, and has had his inner thigh manhandled by men since before he could lisp the word inseam.

However.

The lanky git had never been fitted for a suit when he'd had an erection. He'd not been fitted for a suit when on such a hair trigger he's pretty sure he maybe came a little when Mrs. Hudson backed into him earlier this morning. And he'd not been fitted for a suit in this condition without John anywhere in sight.

The tailor's hand hove near and Mrs. Hudson—topping up her tumbler—was pretty sure Sherlock a little bit growled.

Sherlock will tell you that frankly _everything _would be fine, good, just perfect if John were here. But John was _not _here because John was busy being a 'guest lecturer' at the Yard—"Look Sherlock, I'm sorry I forgot about this, but I promised Greg over six months ago that I'd…that I…uh, _oooh"_—and wouldn't be fitted for his own pearl grey, long-tailed tux for another two hours.

Which was why the third incident occurred at _Hunter & Hanes Bespoke Tailoring _six days and two hours before John and Sherlock were married.

"This is becoming tiresome dear."

Sherlock didn't hear those five words because he was briefly contemplating the feasibility of having a discreet wank in the men's plush loo. However, Sherlock had already sort of done that in the cab over—(the cab driver has witnessed three marriage proposals, a birth, and once a year carries a couple who celebrate their anniversary by blowing each other in the back seat, so using peripheral vision to watch a pretty man get himself off in less than a minute was almost not worth noting; almost)—so all that meant was he'd have another erection before he'd properly cleaned up from the previous one and therefore wanking in the loo was at best an exceedingly short-term solution.

Sherlock's next thought was to simply cancel the fitting and reschedule for later, later being a time when John was available for manhandling in the gentlemen's lounge—at least then Sherlock's cock went quiescent for whole minutes at a time—but Mrs. Hudson had informed him that he had an appointment in one hour to taste wedding cake. When he opened his mouth to object to this clear absurdity Elizabeth Hudson had taken one step forward and placed her small body within six inches of his large one. She looked up at him and he…looked everywhere but at her. And that was settled.

"Sherlock Holmes, stop that infernal dancing or I will throttle you."

Sherlock actually heard those eleven growled words and would have added a few of his own but he'd managed to at last waltz himself into a corner and the tailor grimly scooted toward his inseam, tape measure clutched as if he'd leash my lanky git with it.

Elizabeth Hudson smiled into her third complimentary glass of Talisker and said in plummy tones, "Just close your eyes and think of England, my pet."

Sherlock heard those ten words in the same way you hear the birds chirping or the dryer humming: you don't. It's white noise, a muted soundtrack behind the much more important communiqué roaring in your head: _If he touches me I'm going to go off like a…like a…what goes off explosively? Ah! Like liquid water to which block potassium has been suddenly added._

The tailor inched closer and Sherlock sucked in his stomach, backed up, tried to merge with the flocked wallpaper. When this didn't work a few things happened all at once.

The tailor touched just below his ankle with the tape measure.

Sherlock rose on tiptoe, as if somehow the extra few inches would at last put him out of harm's reach.

And Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson finally had enough.

"Oh for god's sake Sherlock, we have a busy planned day." Liz paused, rewound her own words, heard them the correct way round, so continued to stomp over to her tall tenant, tumbler of whiskey still clutched firmly in one small hand, the other reaching out, reaching low, reaching for the bulging thing that was—

Sherlock squeaked, turned, and attempted to so vigorously merge the constituent atoms of his front with the pretty flocking that he, well he, his um…

_"Oh god yeeessss."_

It's safe to say the wallpaper had so not seen _that_ coming.

_I would like you to please accept—as I now have—that this story is going to go on for one hundred years. Because apparently that is how I taco. If you've got any ideas on what you want to see go down while the boys are so relentlessly up do please share. Speaking of share, this chapter used the words sternocleidomastoid, pole, glitter, manicure, and pedicure. Thank you Starshine24mc for the first, Dromeda for the second and third, and I've misplaced the name of the person who provided the final two. So sorry! Updates of this tale should hopefully now be once a week. Because that is how I baguette._


	3. Chapter 3

"Prove it."

She was five years old and she changed Sherlock Holmes' life forever.

Rebecca Daisy Virtue would grow to be almost as bright, almost as good as her name, but when she was very small she was little more than bony elbows, skinned knees, and _mouth._

It was Rebecca who first taught Sherlock what a weapon that last thing could be, and though her lessons were at times cruel, funny, or furious they can be boiled down to two words: Prove it.

Every love, every hate, every intense emotion a tender five-year-old heart can house, nearly every last thought and feeling baby Sherlock professed, was answered, for nearly two long years, with those two words.

If Sherlock said he could run fast, Rebecca Virtue took off like a shot, shouting "Prove it." If he said he could eat twice as much ice cream, Rebecca gorged until she was nearly sick and then watched Sherlock eat until he actually was. If he said he liked her she demanded hugs, if he said he was sad, she needed tears, if he said he knew a secret, a story, had an idea or a dream she wanted words and so for nearly two years, Sherlock proved himself over and over and over again.

And Sherlock never did quite grow out of that, did he?

...

"So when's the baby due?"

John frowned at himself in the tailor's three-way mirror, smoothed the dark grey waistcoat over his tummy. "Michael Heston Stamford, of all the people in all the world, you may be the one I would most regret strangling."

One of these days I'm going to have to thank Mike.

"I'm on my last nerve, and though it turns out it's a resilient nerve, I'm pretty sure it'll snap _some_ time. I'd hate for you to be collateral damage."

Mike did the hard work of softening John up for me. But not before annoying the hell out of him.

"So if you could stop with the jokes, the japes, the jests, that'd be really appreciated. Really."

The Man Who Started It All beamed at John's reflection. John glanced at that grin and away because that smile really did sort of blaze. Always had. It was one of the reasons that once you were friends with Stamford, you _stayed_ friends with Stamford. The man looks upon those he cares for and he damn well _beams._

"Sorry John. Everyone's just a bit surprised is all. You two getting married—it's kind of sudden and you know that old saw they use in movies—thank you."

The tailor's assistant handed Mike his fourth cup of coffee. While everyone was thus diverted John surreptitiously mashed at his cock through the pocket of the too-long tuxedo trousers.

"So…why now?"

John briefly wondered if anyone had seen what he just did. Then realized he didn't care. Then he realized he was taking on one of Sherlock's more debatable traits. Then he realized he didn't care about _that_ either.

"What now?"

Stamford finished sweetening his coffee. Slowly. "Why are you two getting married now?"

The roughest two weeks of his life sort of flashed before the good doctor's eyes. "I don't know. Why not last year? Or twenty minutes after we met? You introduced us, aren't you surprised it took_ this long?"_

At the sound of the italics, Stamford glanced up from his sugar packets. "If I were a betting man I'd have given even odds for either an engagement or an evisceration the first year."

John stopped squirming as the tailor unfurled his tape measure. "I'd have given even odds for me still living in a tiny flat in east London, trying to decide every night between slitting my throat or marking papers."

Everyone there assembled went briefly silent before this delicate reality.

As two inseams were measured—took less than six seconds—Mike beamed some more and said, "Let me get a few boys from Bart's together. We'll celebrate."

Both the tailor and Mike were looking at him so John couldn't mash at the insistent thing between his legs. This annoyed him. He vented that annoyance the only way he could.

_"No."_

There they were again, italics. Mike put down his cup and laced his fingers.

"Don't give me that look."

The wattage of Mike's beaming did not flicker, it did not dim.

"Greg asked, too—I think—and just, no, those things are flashy and strange and I live with a genius six year old, I already have enough flashy and strange."

A lot of people forget that Mike knew Sherlock before John did. There's something about the grinning, easy-going man that absolutely no one associates with Sherlock. Especially when Sherlock was a whole lot more…Sherlock.

"What's Sherlock think about it?"

John lifted a belligerent chin. "There's no way in hell Sherlock'd want a _party._ With _people_ at it."

Mike picked up his coffee. He didn't say anything about maybe one small man projecting his truculence onto one large man. He didn't say anything like _do we even know the same show-off? The one who flaps around a room until everyone's looking? The one who'd like nothing more than to show _you_ off to a room full of people who are_ looking?

No. Mike didn't say any of that. Mike just beamed.

John sort of crossed his legs while standing up. The clenching only exacerbated what needed no exacerbation. "I'm going to be late for a cake thing, and I still have to go home and shower. And there will be no stag party. All right?"

Michael Heston Stamford finished his fourth cup of coffee, and nodded. "Whatever you say John."

And then Mike more or less passed the baton to me.

...

"You did not just say that."

_Are we there yet?_

Sherlock had indeed just said that. Said it despite the fact that they were in sighting distance of Baker. The street on which he lived. As the limousine idled in traffic he could _see_ the intersection a hundred metres in front of him.

Elizabeth Hudson took a deep, calming breath.

It was all right. It was _fine._ It was all fine. She could do this. She _would_ do this. The car was suddenly inching forward, they were nearly almost sort of there, and if she held her breath and wished upon a star, and was a very, very good girl they'd maybe make it to Baker before she flew completely off the rai—

_"Sherlock Holmes stop fidgeting or I will take you apart in pieces."_

Before the good detective could pedantically say in his pedantic way that in order to take someone apart you must, by the nature of the thing, do it in pieces, Liz hissed, "And I will happily start with that thing you keep pawing."

Sherlock went utterly still. Then he slowly lifted a belligerent chin and more slowly still tugged his suit coat down over the inflamed thing in his lap.

Liz nodded to no one in particular. Sherlock's chin lofted higher. Liz looked away. Sherlock recommenced pawing.

And complaining.

"Tell me again why you're making all the decisions. Because I seem to recall that it's John and myself getting Married." Even the chauffer nestled behind her tinted-glass partition could hear Sherlock's prideful capitalization of the m-word.

Gaze fixed out the window—she knew exactly what Sherlock was up to over there—Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson murmured a few words. Most were short, all were mighty. They shut Sherlock Holmes right on up for an entire five minutes. A definite record for the year.

"Acid burns in the carpet. Bullet holes in the wall. Toxic mold in the cupboards. And the last two weeks."

...

_Excuse me, you said what now?_

I wouldn't have said anything you know, because how the boys live their life is none of my business.

It's very much not my job to tell John or Sherlock what to do, and despite what you think, and regardless of what they say, and notwithstanding any remarks you may have heard, I am the quietest resident here at 221B. Seriously, it's not like—

Never mind. _Never mind._ The point is that I wouldn't have said anything about anything at all but _he started it._

So all the stuff that happened later, the nudity, and almost-arrest? The kiss and sort-of fight? The threat from Mrs. Hudson, and the one from Mycroft? And that thing they did in the Serpentine at Hyde Par—oh wait. No one knows about that.

Anyway, the point I'm reaching for—and it's here somewhere—is that John started it and all the rest of it isn't my fault and…well see for yourself.

_Excuse me, you said what now?_

Hair still spiky-damp, skin dewy, cock half-tenting his trousers despite a wank in the shower, John hopped around the sitting room bare-chested, trying to put his socks on.

"Look, I'm not discussing this with you."

Like I said, he started it. Grousing about the tuxedo fitting just done—"Do they really need to get their hand up in there like that?"—complaining about the cake tasting for which his ride was late, and in general tripping round the sitting room trodding on his own last nerve.

All I did was hold up my end of the conversation.

_Because I could swear you just made a unilateral decision for two when only one is actually present._

"You stop right there missy. I do not want to hear another word."

_I _can't stand all straight-backed and sort-of tall. I can't clench my jaw either—all things my wee warrior did just then—I _can,_ however, do one thing.

"Do you understand? Not one word. This isn't open to debate."

I understood. I did not debate.

"My nerves are shot. And—" an even straighter back "— I am not known to be a nervous man."

That went without saying. So I did not say it.

"And at the best of times I'm just not much of a party person."

I quietly agreed. Quietly.

John unclenched his jaw long enough to lick his lips, then reengaged the clenching.

By this time I know each man knows that going silent is my stratagem to get them to talk themselves round to my viewpoint. Yet they still fall for it every time.

"Look, I was in the army for nearly seven years, remember?"

I've little else to do but remember.

"I can honestly tell you that in those nearly seven years I experienced all the vomiting and awful music and inappropriate behavior that I ever need to experience ever."

John began pacing around the sitting room, still sockless, but slightly more erect. He didn't seem to notice, with the exception of an occasional shove with the heel of his hand.

"Which was fine, actually, desperate times, desperate measures and all that. But these are not those."

My tiny titan gestured dramatically. "Actually I lie, I'll take a nasty war over the two weeks that've just passed any day."

John glanced at me. If I could smile encouragingly, I'd have smiled. Encouragingly.

"Look, don't give me that look. I was just telling you—"

_You aren't 'telling,' you're seeking support._

"—about the day—"

_Because you presume you're right._

"—just making conversa—what?"

John did that other John thing he does when he's feeling belligerent and correct. He kind of jutted out his chin.

"What do you mean 'presume'? I'm not presuming. I know Sherlock. He won't want to do this."

_When Sherlock sang to you in Angelo's—badly—for your birthday, did you know he was going to do that?_

"No, of course not, I—"

_When he apologized to Anderson for that dye debacle at the hair salon crime scene, did you see that coming?_

"Oh hell no, but—"

_You don't know Sherlock. _Sherlock_ doesn't know Sherlock. Not since you came along._

"Look, are you actually telling me we should have a damn stag party? With the bad booze and bad taste and possibly strange tits and—sorry, no offense—"

_None taken._

"—and whatever else?"

_No._

"Good, because—"

_Have a nice stag party. With good booze, good taste, and strange cock._

"What? Why? I don't even like parties—"

_Oh my silly, silly soldier, aren't you getting this? It's not for _you.

"Are you listening to yourself? You think it's for Sherlock? You think Sherlock wants a bachelor party? Now I know you're crazy."

_Says the man talking to a skull._

John frowned. "Look I've been with him. At parties. During holidays. He _complains._ Loudly. You've _been_ there. You've worn the awful hats." John shrugged at me expectantly.

_I'm not uttering another word._

John pooched out his lips.

_No, you work this one out on your own._

John frowned.

_It's too obvious. I won't say one single additional thing._

He suddenly seemed so small.

_It would be clear to a deep sea newt John—and they're blind, you know._

John blinked at me, those pretty eyes gone all wide and attentive.

I'd have bitten my lips if I had any. He wasn't going to get me to tell him the obvious. And then later blame me for whatever inevitably went wrong.

I wasn't going to say anything.

Nothing.

_No._

...

"Why is this even necessary?"

At this rate Elizabeth Hudson could crawl to 221 faster than the car was getting them there. But it was fine. _It was all fine._ They had plenty time.

"Frankly, who cares about it?"

Too much time really.

"Do people leave a wedding saying, 'The ceremony was affecting, the vows heart-felt, but the cake was appalling. I may write a note.'"

Far too much time, actually.

"We could buy a gross of linzer torte from Tesco for all I care."

As a matter of fact, if they didn't move soon, Mrs. Hudson might shortly need Sherlock Holmes to get her off a murder charge. Except he'd be dead. Because she'd have killed him.

"Sherlock."

"Or allsorts. We could sprinkle them around like party favors."

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Why are we even feeding them? Wouldn't this move along faster if we just went to the registrar's office and said the things needing saying and then we're done, we're married? Why don't we simply—_ouch!"_

You never see a dope-slap until it's too late.

...

"Tell me. Please. You were a therapist, you understand the human heart."

The very first day John walked into this flat he noticed me, pointed to me, remarked on me. You'd be surprised how many people don't. I've adored him since then, and my devotion has only grown over the last two years.

But don't think I don't know he's playing me like a damn banjo. But still…

_Again and again, for two decades I saw it: How a few words or moments can change a life. Sometimes lessons learned when you're so small you still lisp can affect the man you grow to be._

John nodded and dressed. I talked and talked.

_Sherlock's spent a lifetime proving his worth, John. Even though he doesn't have to, even though he's shown us a dozen times over, a hundred, that he's brilliant. Still he strives to be worth the admiration of people he doesn't even admire. And yes, he goes about it in all the wrong ways, being mouthy and rude, showy and loud, but in the end he's endlessly a small boy trying to prove to people he doesn't even know that he's…worthy._

I said nothing for exactly as long as it took for John to go all mushy round his edges.

_How many times today has the lanky git asked you to run off and get married?_

"I don't—" John paused. "Three. No eight. A few times before I left this morning, then five via text." John looked at his watch. "About once every half hour."

_You're quite nearly the first person to treat Sherlock like he's human. And he is human, right down to the marrow in those long bones. He'll rail against the vagaries of emotion, mock the frailties to which flesh is err, but he knows he's as human and flawed as the rest of us and every day he fears the loss of you because in his heart he thinks he hasn't proven he's worthy—or maybe he just _isn't.

John hung his head. It used to hate hurting people, but sometimes the hurting is what _helps._

_I think it's time other people do the proving, don't you? Let other people make the grand gestures and the pronouncements, let them tell Sherlock he's worth it. With booze and bad music and too many pats on the back._

"I'm an idiot."

_Yes you are my little warrior. But your teachable, and that's rare. So what are you going to do?_

"Have a party, I suppose."

_You sound thrilled my pet._

"I'm sorry, it's just—"

_May I offer a suggestion._

"I don't think you'll stop if I—"

_Have two parties._

"Why on earth would—"

_Let Sherlock have a nice, normal stag party and you do something boring—um, you do something classy and nice._

John put on his thinking face. "That's a good idea."

Yes, that's what we both thought.

Then.

...

The next incident occurred five days and twenty three hours before John and Sherlock got married and it happened very fast.

The chauffeur helped my Lizzie from the car. Lizzie bent over and looked back inside the vehicle.

_"You_ stay _here._ I'll fetch my mobile, then John, and we'll be off to taste cake. If you so much as place one expensively-shod shoe outside this vehicle, I'll feed you to the swans in the park. Do you understand?"

Sherlock crossed his legs and sharply tugged the hem of his suit coat down with both hands.

"Good."

Lizzie and the chauffeur then turned and walked to 221's door. They went inside. Eighteen seconds later John Watson came out.

The rest went sort of like a dance, really.

John climbed into the limo, took a deep breath, and instead of saying hello my espoused, or how are you my love, or kiss-kiss hug-hug, he said, "You came. I can _smell _you."

Sherlock blinked, panted twice, then face-planted between John's legs.

John murmured, "Hang on," fished himself out of pants and trousers, and spread wide.

Sherlock reattached like a limpet, and started to suck.

One, two, three pulls, a fourth for luck and John started coming with a heady groan.

Queue music change, and…

Sherlock pressed his back against the limousine door and lifted his suit coat, cock already running free and waving to the four winds.

John pitched forward and clamped on.

Three, two, one and _"Oh dear god yes."_

Queue tempo change, and…

A delicate rap on the limo's window. "Yoohoo, are you in there John?"

The doctor and the detective tugged up their zippers. The doctor swiped a quick finger across the detective's dewy lips. The detective took hold of the doctor's hand and licked it clean. The doctor was _this_ close to faceplanting again when the limousine door opened and the small, delicate figure of Elizabeth Hudson entered.

She smiled at both of our boys, patted John's knee, and said, "Good god boys, it smells like a harem in here."

_'I'll updated this weekly,' Atlin said. 'Trust me,' she said. Yes. Well. Trying. Failing with sparkling grandeur, but trying. This chapter used the words linzer torte, skull, exacerbate, and fidget. Thank you Aurora-boreali, Shymagical, Tysolna, and Suchanadorer for sharing those words!_


	4. Chapter 4

"You, over here." Lizzie pointed to a white silk-upholstered chair to her right. John nodded politely, sat down and crossed his legs. He then uncrossed and recrossed them. Hard.

"You, here." Sherlock stared at his fidgeting fiancé until Liz snapped her fingers in his face. He then lifted his chin and lowered his plush arse into the opulent chair to Liz's left.

Now under the illusion that having the patisserie's gleaming mahogany table between her boys somehow altered the hormone-addled equation, Liz began to sit down.

Her mobile played a few bars of _Long Tall Sally._

"Bugger." Liz stood; smoothed her dress. "Boys, I'm sorry, but I've forgotten that I have a previous engagement."

Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson lifted her chin and looked first at John Watson and then at Sherlock Holmes. Then she did it again.

"Now, tell me please, what will you do here in my absence?"

Sensing a trap, Sherlock shoved his hands under his thighs and bit his bottom lip. Not for the first time Liz reflected that the lanky git was the emotional age of a six year old.

So she praised him like one. "Very good, dear. You'll sit on those roaming hands and keep your pretty mouth shut, this way no wandering willies can find their way inside it." Liz turned to Sherlock's fiancé. "And what will you do?"

John is not six. He wasn't even six when he was six, too busy taking responsibility for his sister, his father, and anyone else in physical proximity who might be screwing up. However, he answered in the manner expected of him because you try smarting off to Elizabeth Hudson. Go ahead, just _try._

"Pick a cake?"

Frankly John's not really sure about half these wedding preparations; he's simply going where he's told and desperately trying to keep his dick in his pants. He's succeeding remarkably well with one of these.

"John, you're a darling. Yes, you'll pick a lovely cake both of you will enjoy on your fast-approaching wedding day." Liz stood tall, smiled benevolently. "While I take this meeting, will you please promise me that you'll do exactly that? _And_ that you'll keep your pricks in your pants, too?"

Sensing a trap, Sherlock bit his top lip and crossed his legs. Hard. John just nodded _yes, yes, yes._

"Lovely. Now I'll see you both this afternoon, when we meet the vicar. Don't be late please; Angelo's sister is postponing her nice gay-cruise holiday to make time to marry you two."

Not sensing any sort of trick, ploy, or ruse, Sherlock nodded; at a loss as to what else to do, John smiled. Liz rewarded both with a kiss to the forehead. Sherlock beamed, John just wondered how long it would take before—

"Be good."

—_it_ started.

Not quite five minutes after Mrs. Hudson left, he got his answer.

…

Mycroft checked his watch. Again. He then inspected his tie in the antique Avidan mirror across from his desk. Again. He straightening what did not need straightening. He took a deep breath. It was still shaky.

The British government swore. Again. _Good god man, she's tiny. She can do you no _lasting _harm._

Mycroft closed his eyes, murmured out the square root of seven to seven decimal places. He wondered if he should just leave before she got here. Let a subordinate give her the news.

Mycroft's eyes flew open and he stared at himself in the pretty mirror. _She'd kill you. She'd kill you dead._ He cleared his throat. "She'll kill you either way, you fool, best to get it over with."

Mycroft checked his watch. And straightened his tie.

…

You British are an eccentric lot.

You'll politely queue for anything, just _anything,_ and should someone jump the queue right in front of you, _you_ will apologize to _them._

In the same vein, you'll make a pot of tea and drink it to the dregs _after_ you discover you've been burgled, but _before_ you call the police.

And, apparently, you will watch two men have sex in the plushly appointed interior of your 'tasting salon' and instead of saying one word, one single word, you will continue to bring them samples and you will pretend you don't see exactly the thing you see.

Good god, I love the fussily refined lot of you.

"Some gentlemen prefer an understated confectionary," whispered Dame Khalida "Kay" Kambarzahi, placing a sliver of sugar-dusted tart before the engaged tarts—um, couple. "Some do not. That, of course, is for you to decide."

The patisserier beamed at the two plates on the gleaming table. She bowed to her pretty clients. She then left the room.

It didn't start right away. As a matter of fact both John and Sherlock had no intention of _it_ starting at all. After all they are grown men. With a good bit of high-level brain function. Both sensibly afraid of their landlady. As such they _can _keep it in their pants.

Besides, if they finished at the patisserie early, they might just have enough time to sneak home and have at each other.

With that in mind, Sherlock and John each took a taste of the delicacy in front of them. Each planned on giving it a hearty nod, a thumbs up, and then grabbing his espoused, going home, and _having at._

Neither took into account the overwhelming power of their reptile brain.

For the moment that icing sugar-dusted torte touched their tongues each man fell upon the rich little confection like an animal starved.

Sherlock consumed with both hands and barely chewed. John's pretty sure he accidentally snorted icing sugar and bit his own finger. Both moaned lavish in newly-piqued hunger.

And _that, _right there, is when it began.

…

Mrs. Hudson can out-think a Holmes.

"So lovely of you to take the time to confer with me Mr. Hol—Mycroft. I'm quite a-flutter with these plans. Our little talks will help keep me grounded."

Oh my Lizzie is such a little liar.

She's been tiny her whole life, my Beth, and had that whispery little-girl voice since forever, but Liz's as flighty as a damn _tank. _However, when you need to out-think a Holmes, you use the ammunition you have close to hand.

"The wedding ceremony itself will be small but formal, with the vows coming from the Book of Common Prayer."

Oh, it's not easy stealing a march on a genius, she'll admit. It's even not often desirable. But it can be done and my Lizzy has done it with a certain regularity.

"The boys were insistent on that, though not on any other particulars, so we're free to do as we wish."

Mycroft, already hopelessly outnumbered—and as yet unaware of that fact—smiled. It was a small, polite smile, the one he used with people he respected but with whom he had little in common.

"Would it be asking too much, dear lady, if you did utterly as _you_ wish?"

Sometimes Elizabeth Hudson thinks it's unkind, playing with the minds of such smart people. They're very much not used to playing.

Mycroft freshened her tea. "You may assume my complicity in every detail."

Elizabeth wrapped her hands around her warm cup; Mycroft's office was chilly. Sherlock often worked in the cold as well, rarely turning on radiators even when his teeth were chattering. She'd long since presumed such discomfort helped focus. She was not wrong.

"Are you sure Mr…Mycroft?"

Mycroft fought against a benevolent smile; he knew it would appear condescending. He often liked to appear condescending, a childish tendency he was endlessly trying to suppress. "I'm quite sure."

"Lovely, then I'll leave a message as to when we can expect you at the engagement dinner. And I'm sure someone somewhere is planning a silly bachelor party for the…"

Cue the benevolent smile.

Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson went quiet.

Mycroft girded his loins and pressed on, his voice only barely trembling. "I'm so sorry, dear lady, but I'm extraordinarily pressed for time this week…"

Mrs. Hudson was no longer smiling.

"…and I'm afraid…"

Lizzy was standing up, looking down at Mycroft.

"…I…"

The faintest flush painted the British government's cheeks.

"Mycroft Holmes, you will not do what's easy. Not this time."

Mycroft held his breath.

"You're so alike, you and your brother, both extraordinary—and so often mistaking that for being _enough. _The rest of us may not be as bright as you boys, but we can see when a man's breaking a sweat, when he's _trying._ You two? You're a lazy pair, so rarely making a real effort."

Elizabeth sat back down and gestured to her tea cup. Mycroft rattlingly refilled it.

"Your brother will be married one time in his life, I guarantee you that. Should John Watson ascend bodily to heaven tomorrow I know as surely as you do that Sherlock will never, not one time, look at another man the way he looks at John. He will never need another human the same way. He will never _love_ the same way. What he has found is rare and we will honour that by honouring _him._ I don't care if you really _are_ extraordinarily busy. And I don't care about your endless taunts of one another, or the fighting. The feud you two have is dull and its time is done."

Elizabeth Hudson sipped her tea. It was very good, the temperature ideal. She expected nothing less.

"So you, Mycroft Holmes, will do the hard thing. You will make time to honour your little brother and the fine man he's marrying. You'll show your _gratitude_ to that fine man for without him I doubt we would have seen Sherlock grow old. We'd have watched him burn up like a supernova. So do me a favor, Mr. Mycroft Holmes, _shut it,_ as John might say, and start thinking about how you'll fit in a dinner party, a bachelor party, and a wedding over the next week. Yes?"

Mycroft finally put down the teapot. Blinked. He thought about saying something rude to the tiny lady in front of him (he's done it before), but he simply didn't have the nerve. So he did the second best thing.

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson."

"Thank you Mycroft. Would you please pass me the cream?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hudson."

…

The patisserier noticed nothing odd until she brought in the bourbon-infused, spiced-custard cake with pretty little white chocolate curls.

Dame Kay—as her friends call her—is particularly fond of that particular fancy. Its frosting gleamed like satin, its crumb was delicate, its flavor sweetly subtle.

Unlike, she was beginning to suspect, the men she was serving.

Not that Dame Kay uttered a word to the affianced couple. Well, actually, she murmured many, but they were words like 'hazelnut-filled' not _did you just moan?_ She said things such as 'caramel-scented,' not_ are you fellating your own fingers, sir?_ She whispered words like 'rosewater-infused,' she did not ask after the goings-on beneath her gleaming mahogany.

Which is to say, Dame Kay, born in Pakistan fifty-three years past, reared in London since the age of two, and quite nearly as English as the queen, said absolutely nothing, not one thing about inappropriate things being done with her smooth ganache. She simply continued to bring her handsome clients posh pastries and she quietly eavesdropped from the adjoining room, as she always did.

Not that much was said in the tasting salon. Not at first.

At first John and Sherlock merely wolfed down sweet sample after sweet sample, aware now that they were ravenous. It wasn't until the fifth pastry, when John was licking raspberry curd from between his fingers, that both heard the other moaning and each abruptly came to the same hormone-hazed conclusion.

_Oh dear Christ were they horny._

That's when _it_ started.

John plunged two fingers deep into his own mouth and started to noisily _suck._

Sherlock pushed prehensile toes between his fiancé's linen-clad thighs and began to _stroke._

And right about then both of them started to loudly pant. They heaved. They grunted and they groaned and they wriggled and they moaned and good god it didn't take long.

While he tongued raspberry from between his own fingers, John furiously humped the foot jammed hard up against his hard-on. It took merely a half-dozen thrusts before the good doctor was keening loud and coming in his pants. The orgasm felt like it went on for a good solid minute, and maybe it did, because god knows those talented toes kept doing some sort magical squeezy-pressy-caressy thing underneath that tabletop.

Everyone gave John another minute to come down slow from coming fast and the good doctor used it to good effect, squirming prettily, giggling softly.

Once Sherlock was sure his espoused was done, quite done, once he'd received a giddy little head nod from John to that effect, Sherlock began rocking hard against the hand he had shoved down his undone trousers. So immediately vigorous was he in his ministrations that his plush chair started sliding across the white Carrara tile with a noisy clatter. His forward motion soon halted by the heavy table in front of him, Sherlock thrust three more time—delicate pastry-filled plates rattling prettily—arched his neck and came with a deep-throated groan.

John's not sure, but he himself may have fired off a second time. He _is_ sure that he bit both the fingers he still had shoved down his throat up to the third knuckle.

Dame Kay could not be reached for comment.

In the end the boys selected the orange-scented chocolate cake with the vanilla whipped cream filling and blood orange-infused white chocolate buttercream. Obviously.

_Well hell, I don't know if I'm hungry or horny or both. *Cough* Anyway, I got so caught up in writing that I totally forgot to include any reader-provided words. I went back and wedged 'spiced' and 'satin' in there, thank you Blackbirdblade and Storyqdayx5d. Now if you'll excuse me._

_P.S. I'm now caught up publishing this story to FFnet. Updates from here happen every two weeks—between updates of "This Time No"—angst then crack then angst then...Wheeeee!_


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter will contain no sex.

Everyone will keep their clothes on and their cocks unmolested for at least the duration of one early dinner, all right?

Because John and Sherlock are going to meet Angelo's sister. She is a woman of the cloth, a well-respected vicar of many years, she's agreed on short notice to marry her brother's friends, and as such Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are going to show some restraint and just _keep it in their pants._

You know who's demanded this of them, embellishing her request with words like 'eviction,' 'evisceration,' and 'dismemberment,' to ensure compliance. Elizabeth Hudson may rarely raise that soft little voice of hers, she may be so small a small child can lift her, but Lizzie Hudson _will _find a way to fuck you up if go against her.

So there will be no sex for the duration of at least _one_ damn dinner, all right?

Oh, don't get the wrong impression. I know from many long afternoon chats—yes, Lizzie and I are old friends—that Mrs. Hudson's all for a bit of humpy bumpy. She's certainly had her fair share, and I know for a fact My Dear Girl's done at least three things John and Sherlock have never even _thought _of, but Elizabeth Hudson believes staunchly that there is a time and there is a place for everything.

So despite their smoldering hot pants, and notwithstanding the long journey they'd endured to get to this point, and regardless of the fact that it was _their_ meet-the-vicar dinner and frankly they could do as they liked, John and Sherlock instead did as they were told.

So. There. At least _that_ was sorted.

…

(If you think anything's even a little bit sorted you haven't been reading closely, have you?)

…

Somehow Sherlock arrived at the restaurant first.

John Watson may not be as bright as his brilliant love but he's quick about a few things and knows:

* No one in the restaurant foyer saw it just now when he gave himself a quick tug via his trouser pocket.

* There are five more days before he's Mr. Watson-Holmes but at this rate he's going to get married from hospital because surely his dick will drop off from overuse well before vows are exchanged.

* Sherlock can not go to the Yard after a sudden call from Lestrade; spend ten minutes at a crime scene; meet Mrs. Hudson at 221B; and _still _arrive at this restaurant before him, not when all John had to do was go from the patisserie to the restaurant via Mycroft Holmes' Limousine Service and Mobile Bordello.

With these certainties filling his head, John Watson arrived table-side, and looked pointedly at his fiancé. Because there he impossibly was.

However, John's manners were also present, so he turned his gaze quickly to the tall, short-haired woman rising awkwardly from booth seating and introduced himself with a little meet-the-vicar bow.

Then, after minor pleasantries were exchanged, everyone had given their order, and several sips of wine had been enjoyed, _It_ began.

"Did you enjoy your cruise, Reverend Ferlinghetti?"

John swallowed a mouthful of bread stick, wine glass halfway toward his mouth. He glanced first at the sharp-featured face of Reverend Eugenia Ferlinghetti, then at his fiancé.

_Hadn't Mrs. Hudson said the vicar postponed her cruise in order to marry them?_

"I did, Mr. Holmes, thank you for asking."

John's body washed prickly cold with adrenaline. It was only then he noticed Ferlinghetti had a mellow little tan._ Oh no. Don't you do it you big git. Do _not_ deduce our vicar._

"Such a…_specialized_ theme for a cruise."

_Small talk. Maybe it was small talk. Could Sherlock possibly be making small talk? With our nice reverend? Please let it be small talk._

The vicar held the consulting detective's eye, unperturbed, and John remembered several things. The woman was a priest of many years, had probably heard dozens of confessions of murder and mayhem (John watches too many night-time soaps), and as such was possibly unshakeable. Also, and more importantly, she was Angelo's sister. She'd probably heard an ungodly number of stories about Mr. Bloody Deduction.

"Surely you don't disapprove, Mr. Holmes?"

John lofted his brows. His dinner companions obviously understood one other. Clearly. He, on the other hand, had not one hot clue as to what they were on about.

"Heavens no. It wouldn't do for the pot to call the kettle black."

Ferlinghetti smiled. John frowned. _What the absolute fu—_

"Perhaps you'd enjoy such a cruise, Mr. Holmes." The vicar sipped her wine, glanced at John. "Or maybe not. Neither of you seem the type."

John realized his glass was still hovering between teeth and table. He promptly forgot about it again when Sherlock smiled and said, "I think you could say John and I take turns. So to speak."

_No, seriously, what the absolute f—_

The vicar smiled again. "Whatever works for you is what works for you."

John at last put his glass down.

Sherlock picked his up, took a healthy slug. "Indeed."

John squinted at his tablemates.

"So, correct me if I'm wrong, but do I sense the…implication…of a quid pro quo, Mr. Holmes?"

John squinted at a passing waiter, as if along with the specials he might know _what the fuck was going on._

"Not at all." The smile fell from Sherlock's face and he put his wine glass down so fast John heard a crack. "Unless it'd work."

The vicar took a deep breath, gave Sherlock a side-long glance. "Actually it wouldn't. I've been a priest too long and held the hand of too many sinners to fear what others think of _my_ sins."

John Watson raised his hand. So he could, you know, ask a question.

So deep were his tablemates into their tête-à-tête, however, neither noticed. John lowered his hand.

"Then perhaps you'd do it as a favour?"

The vicar crossed her legs, slouched a bit in the booth. "Angelo didn't exaggerate about you. He's such an emotional boy I thought he'd painted you far more dramatic than you are."

_Dramatic? Boy? What?_

"Be that as it may. The answer is yes, Mr. Holmes, I'll happily grant you this boon."

Sherlock jerked upright so hard the cutlery rattled. "Really?"

Eugenia Ferlinghetti smiled at Sherlock, then John. "It's _your_ life, isn't it?"

Sherlock slumped a little, frowned a lot. "There would be…_social _consequences."

The reverend uncrossed her legs, recrossed them the other way. "Not for me."

Sherlock sat straight again, went briefly shifty-eyed, then made a decision. "John. Out."

"Eh?" The good doctor shook his head, groggy from confusion. "What?"

Sherlock was busy shoving his fiancé from the booth with the force of one solid hip. John resisted briefly, then allowed Sherlock to do what he's done countless times in the last two years: Push him around. Literally.

Under the urgent propulsion of Sherlock's body he trip-walked toward the back of the restaurant, his fiancé so close he could smell the wine on the man's breath. Ferlinghetti moved more serenely but was on their heels as they approached—

"Why are we heading to the loo? I don't—"

As one Sherlock, John, and Eugenia Ferlinghetti entered the restaurant's mercifully unoccupied gent's toilets. Without a single word spoken the vicar turned and locked the door behind her. Later John would remember thinking it was almost as if she did it every day.

That brief thought was followed by one not quite so fleet. No, John's next thought was sturdy, loud, and belligerent. "God damn it Sherlock—sorry, no offense vicar—what the _fuck_ are we doing in the men's toilet with a woman?"

Reverend Eugenia Ferlinghetti smiled, "John, I think you're about to be married."

…

"—and if you could please just tell Mr. Holmes I called."

"Certainly sir, thank you for your time."

Greg Lestrade hung up his mobile, slumped on his park bench and wondered 1) when he'd last seen the Thames this high, 2) if it was normal for a secretary to thank _you_ for _your_ time when _you'd_ called _him, _and 3) when he'd started to think of this Jubilee Gardens bench as his.

Didn't matter, he'd done what he needed to do, and though it was late maybe he'd swing by the Met and finish a bit of paperwor—

Greg's mobile vibrated. He flipped it open.

"Hello detective inspector Lestrade, thank you so much for calling. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Greg grinned, slid lower on his park bench and murmured, as if to a conspirator, "Mr. Holmes, I need your help."

…

"What now?"

For the first time the vicar looked uncertain. "John, do you _want_ to marry Sherlock?"

John batted at the air with both hands as if to clear the fog in his brain. "What?"

Meanwhile Sherlock was panting so loudly beside his fiancé he sounded like a train trying to gain speed. "Of course he does, don't you John, yes he does, it's fine, he's just temporarily confused, he's really very bright but sometimes, well you know, can we just get on with it, Mrs. Hudson said she may drop by and it'd be rude to keep her waiting—ouch!"

That last bit came courtesy of John clapping a nice solid hand over Sherlock's nice stupid mouth. With the other he pointed a finger at the vicar. "Are you telling me that somehow, out there, over a glass of wine, and using some sort of priest-super genius code, you and Sherlock cryptically came to an agreement that you'd marry us, right now, in the men's toilets of, of—for fuck sake I don't even remember where we are."

The right reverend Eugenia Ferlinghetti pursed her lips, clasped her hands behind her back, and decided to sit this one out.

"And you," John yanked his hand from Sherlock's mouth the better to ball both hands into fists. "What the hell is wrong with you? I am not getting married in a place where people piss. I'm not going to look back on my wedding day and recall with fondness how sweet the vows sounded reverberating off porcelain tile."

John unclenched his fists so he could clench them harder. "I'm going to get married in front of our friends and I am going to do it in bright sunshine and in a very nice suit. I'm going to kiss you romantically after we pledge our hearts and then I'm going to get a bit drunk and have cake. After that we're going to dance and get a bit more drunk and then we're going to go to the nice bed and breakfast and sleep the sleep of the good and the just. In the morning we'll have breakfast and sex in bed and then we'll go to the airport and fly to Australia and have a nice honeymoon."

Leaning forward at the waist, John glared up at Sherlock. "That is how _that_ is going to go, because I did not wait forty years of my life to fall in love and get married just so I could _get it over with."_

The good doctor's voice went soft, but reverberated quite nicely against the porcelain tile just the same.

"Sherlock, I didn't wait nearly forty years of my life to _find you_ only too change my mind now that I have you. I'm…I…"

John nodded curtly, stood straight, looked off to the left. He took a deep breath and everyone present heard it shake, just as everyone present saw the tears John did not shed.

"I'm not going to change my mind, Sherlock," whispered the good doctor. "I _want_ to marry you. But I want to marry you where everyone can _see."_

John took another shaky breath, cleared his throat. He nodded again, that martial bob of the head that was at once commanding, endearing, and almost fragile.

"Can I do that?" he asked the hand dryer. "Can I marry you on a green hillside, in a pearl grey tux, and feel my heart just about break because it still doesn't know how to hold all this god damn love I have for you?"

John closed his eyes. Sherlock opened his. Both bowed their heads as if in prayer.

By the time each man became aware of anything past his own pounding heart, the vicar was long gone…and the gent's door was still locked.

"How did—"

"Never mind," Sherlock said pressing his body against John's but this time he wasn't pushing him around, he was pulling him close. "I'm so sorry John."

John stood there, still, shallow-breathing, and shivering. He didn't hug back or speak because he didn't have the energy to do one single thing more than what he was right now doing.

Along with knowing Sherlock couldn't run off to the Met and still make it to a restaurant before him, John knew at least one other thing: Getting married was heart work…yes, _heart_ work. He couldn't think of any other time in his life where he had _felt_ so much, so deeply, and so unexpectedly. It was fucking exhausting.

John pulled away just enough that he could prop the top of his head against Sherlock chest and gaze at their shoes. There he gathered his wits by briefly daydreaming about his lover wearing grey spike-heeled pumps with his fitted wedding coat, then asked his fiancé's slightly-scuffed black Armani's, "What the hell were you two _on_ about out there?"

Sherlock petted John's head and noticed three long, permed strands of hair in the sink, a faint dusting of brown eye shadow on the floor, the slight scuff of pointed heels by the bin, and wondered how long the proprietor of the restaurant had been cross-dressing.

"I may or may not have been threatening to expose the vicar's S&M lifestyle if she didn't marry us right now and in reply she…is 'handed me my hat' the correct phrase?"

John didn't even bother to lift his head, just kept his gaze trained on their feet. It was restful. "You're not normal Sherlock. When most people want something, they just ask."

"Can I suck you off right now?"

John grunted but didn't move. "Not in a public toilet you can't."

Sherlock grunted back. "You see? That's what happens when you 'just ask.'"

John made a vague noise, conceding the point. Threats did have a way of ensuring compliance. Heck, it worked for Mrs. Hudson.

"Where is Mrs. Hudson, anyway?" John enquired of their feet.

Sherlock had stopped petting John, was now twisting a finger into the getting-longish hair at the back of his sweetheart's neck. "In our flat. On your computer. Deciding at which winery we'll be married."

Again, John did little more than grunt. "I hope you—"

"I created a guest account. She can't see all those photos you took of me in the riding tack."

John may or may not have visualized black straps criss-crossing pale, sweating skin. He may or may not have grunted again, a little lower, a little longer.

"So, the vicar. Explain. Step-by-step."

Through the top of his head John felt Sherlock's heartbeat kick up by a good ten percent. They both knew what it meant if John asked Sherlock to delineate his deductions.

"I…uh…sort of said slightly not true things about seeing Lestrade. And Mrs. Hudson. But not," Sherlock whispered, as if the very thought scandalized, "about the crime scene. That was a few doors down."

John, still kind of propped against his fiancé by the top of his head, nodded to encourage more.

"Anyway, I came here early so I could ask the vicar to marry us. I was going to do it your way—" John knew this was also slightly not true but was pretty sure Sherlock did not. "—when I…noticed a few things.

Another chest-head-nod-thingy. Sherlock took up petting John's hair again.

"As the vicar came toward the booth I saw her walk was slightly compromised. I'm aware of dozens of reasons that might have been, though I'll admit one is especially familiar."

With his free hand Sherlock petted his own bum, instinctually soothing several years of remembered riding crop bruises, and John murmured, "I see."

Sherlock nodded. "When she took her seat and did not exactly _sit_ on her seat, instead just slightly slumping in the booth, I presumed my presumption about the cause of her limp might have some foundation."

John took over bum-patting duties and murmured, "Interesting."

"We chatted briefly and then the restaurant dimmed the lights, signaling the move toward evening food service. At that time the vicar glanced up. That's when, over her clerical collar, I saw a band of slightly paler flesh around her slightly tanned neck."

John's other hand joined the first on Sherlock's arse.

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Of course these two clues led me easily to the rest. To gain more data, I placed the wine bottle just out of the vicar's reach. When she leaned over for it a few minutes later, I noted a complementary stripe of pale flesh at one wrist and then on the other wrist when she lifted her glass."

John used Sherlock's arse as a fulcrum, mashing their fronts together, and whispered, "Amazing."

Sherlock hummed a little. "Of course without further data I couldn't conclude whether the vicar spent the _entirety_ of her BDSM-themed cruise leashed and cuffed, or only part, but that didn't seem to matter."

John casually raised himself on tip-toes and dry-humped Sherlock's clothed cock, whispered, "Fantastic."

Sherlock grunted, squatted a little to give his little love greater access. "After that it was a straight-forward matter to let the vicar know I wouldn't make her predilections more widely known if she'd simply agree to marry us. Now."

John clutched his double-handful more firmly, rubbed harder, possibly murmured something like 'beautiful idiot,' though only Sherlock heard that part.

About two minutes later everyone in the restaurant heard the other, more shouty part. It was hard not to. Twice. First in a nice lusty tenor, and then in a quite indecent baritone.

…

Look, technically this chapter did not contain any sex. Not really. Not if you think about it.

I mean no one actually _saw_ anything. There's no actual proof that what twenty-seven people say they heard had anything to do with anything that had to do with sex. So if you'd just…I mean…

Look, could we keep this between only us? Not say anything to Lizzie? Because I'd certainly appreciate it, and it would save me the effort of having to say slightly not true things about your reliability, okay?

Please?

Thank you.

_I don't want to alarm you, but this is just the _first day_ after the engagement and it's taken about thirteen thousand words to get here. I am not sure I can survive the rest. Also, for anyone who notices, I now publish on Tuesday instead of Monday; I think this will mean more porn *Fist bump.* Finally, I totally forgot to include the words readers gave me to include in each of these chapters. Um. Sorry._


	6. Chapter 6

"John. John. John."

Breathing. Silence.

"John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John."

No reply.

"John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. John. _Joooohn."_

No one, absolutely _no one _in the history of time ever wanted to get laid more than Sherlock did right now. He could think up at least four experiments to prove that, too.

What he was less certain of was how to _get the sex_ he desired when the person with whom he desired to have it did not want it.

"John. John. John. John. John. John. John."

Saying his lover's name approximately once every three quarter seconds was not the way to do it.

So far.

"John. John. John John _John."_

It would, of course, help if his lover was _awake._ But Sherlock was _not_ going to do _that_ again.

He tried it once. Waking John up with a stabby poke of a long digit to the doctor's ribs. Sherlock's read stories about John—the doctor has a lot of fans that follow his blog and sometimes they write strange little fictions of John-motivated daring-do—anyway, in these tales John is a soldier all the way through, ever on tenterhook and tiptoe, pulled taut and on a hair trigger, just waiting to unleash his pent-up power with the simple provocation of a pokey finger in the ribs.

Ha. Ha.

The one time Sherlock woke John with a poke John did not bound out of bed like a spring uncoiled, a snarl on his lips, one hand at Sherlock's throat, the other pulled back in a fist.

Oh god no.

Nope, the good doctor woke up, growled, "You little fucking fuck. That was the best dream _ever,"_ turned over on his side and tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep. Once he rose he was in such a relentlessly foul mood for the entire morning that Sherlock seriously contemplated working out the logistics of time travel so he could _go back in it_ and not wake John with a stabby poke of a long digit.

So no, after _that_ debacle Sherlock was not going to _directly_ wake John with anything, not a slim finger, not a kiss, not a poke in the arse with Sherlock's _ridiculously hard, we're talking really-super-hard_ cock, either.

Absolutely not. Instead Sherlock was going to whisper-whine like an over-sized child—"John? John? John? John? John? John? John? John? _John?"—_and hope his lover would wake up with a burning need to get himself fucked right into the mattress.

Yes, yes, it was a measure of how relentlessly turned on Sherlock was right now that he was swearing in his own head. Because, as I'm sure you know, super geniuses do not do many things:

* They don't worry about _nice,_ for they are smarter than the average bear and know that 98% of the people they encounter any given day will never cross their path again—why waste unnecessary courtesies?

* They do not swear. Swearing makes you sound dumb (unless you're John, in which case it makes you sound…Sherlock's not going to think about that right now because if he gets any harder he's going to have a heart attack) and if there's one thing super geniuses care about—and there are many things super geniuses care about—it's that the average bears _know they're super geniuses._

* They don't directly wake their boyfriend/lover/one-true-loves-going-to-be-husband and simply _ask for sex_ because not only might they disturb the 'best dream ever' (which, by the way, John never told him about despite carefully couched, probing, genius-type questions for the next three days), but they do use every trick in their admittedly slender Trick Book to _wake their boyfriend/lover/soon-to-be-husband._

So far the whole name-chanting thing was completely not working, but while he tried to think up something else Sherlock wasn't going to give up on this long-shot.

"John. John. Johnny John, my John. _Joooohn."_

There had to be a really good way to wake John. And not just wake the man, but rouse him in such a way that the first thing—the absolute very first thing—he wanted was to get fucked right into the mattress.

"John. John. John John John."

Sherlock groped his own cock, amazed, once more, at the, the, the _drama_ of the thing. It was possibly so substantial it might require its own room.

Frankly he was amazed by this whole _relentless, erection-you-can-see-from-space_ thing that first day but by now, as we've said, all Sherlock's concerned about is getting on John or under John and then getting them off.

"John. Wake up John. My fingers are tingling from blood loss John. I can't feel my toes. All the blood has left my extremities, I sincerely believe that. Are you listening John? Why are you not listening?"

John wasn't listening, John was sleeping.

That meant only one thing.

…

_For the love of god please don't say it again. I might die._

"John—"

_Needs to wake up, yes, I know._

"—and you're already dead."

_I am, my stupid, grievously annoying pet. Now stop pacing, stop treading on your pants, and sit down sit down sit _down._ You're making me nervous._

Sherlock did not stop pacing, did not pick up last night's hastily discarded pants, trousers, shirts, or shoes, he simply kept sailing back and forth, dressing gown flowing behind him like a silky train, right hand doing a very distracting…thing.

"Something's wrong with time, you know. It's changed. It's gone soft and runny, like over-heated agar." Sherlock underscored his point by gripping tight and pointing his…point.

I didn't stare. No, that's not right. I always stare. If you don't have eyelids, you stare. The thing I tried to do was look anywhere but at the place Sherlock was unconsciously manhandling, but I couldn't, it was too fascinating, like a one-eyed cobra.

_Why don't you just masturbate?_

Sherlock stopped pacing, released his cock, stood tall.

"I beg your pardon?"

The cobra, uh, point, oh hell, his _erection _sort of bounced jauntily with his indignation. I tried to say something but frankly for a moment I didn't even know my own name.

"I _said _I beg your pardon?" Sherlock yanked his dressing gown tightly around him, and finally I located my scattered wits.

_For a genius you are quite the idiot._

Sherlock stood as absolutely tall as he gets.

_Just go back to bed and start wanking. You're as noisy as a set of bagpipes, certainly that will wake sleeping beauty._

I was wrong. Sherlock tacked on another stiff-spined inch and said "I am _not_ going to lay hands on myself," in such a scandalized tone you'd think I'd suggested he smear brown sauce in his hair and go bite puppies.

_Sherlock Holmes, you have been laying hand upon yourself since you walked in here. And in the last two days you've had yourself repeatedly and with pleasure, wanking four times in this room alone, then—_

Sherlock stamped his foot and so help me I could see with peripheral vision (which apparently I still have) his erection bob up and down beneath that flimsy gown. "But obviously John wasn't _here_ any of those times."

Surprisingly I don't miss much about being alive, but I do miss the ability to speak without speaking. Like my boys I was fond of the occasional raised chin, the pursed lip, a rare moue of displeasure.

Alas I do not have any of these at my disposal, so I must strictly rely on my words.

_Stop being such a helpless big baby, you big baby. John's been walking the tight-rope of his last frayed nerve for two weeks and two days and our wee warrior is _weary._ You just better cut him a break and take matters into your own hands. Both of them if necessary. Do you hear me?_

Sherlock shoved out a petulant lower lip and muttered, but was again unconsciously handling his hard-on as he did so.

Yeah, I don't miss much about being alive. But I do, uh, miss some things.

…

John woke up already coming.

Of this he's usually not a fan, because you sort of miss the best parts of the orgasm, but as he was dragged from dreams—a boat (his), bracelets (Sherlock's), and bananas (don't ask)—by his ejaculating cock, John keened softly, happily.

As the last of the spasms faded the good doctor opened his eyes. Everything was fucking _fantastic. _His bones were mush, his muscles non-existent, and if that orgasm wasn't in the top three for the month he'd eat, he'd eat—

"Sherlock?"

John's reaching hand found still-warm empty space. Certain his fiancé was simply in the loo, John wriggled over to Sherlock's side of the bed, uttered a satiated sigh, and as he began a nice, slow, getting-ready-for-his-fiancé wank, John fell asleep.

…

I went silent as a silent thing. Quiet as church mouse. I kept my mouth shut and just let Sherlock get on with, you know, _getting on._ The sooner he took that urgent matter into his own hands the sooner he'd stop the infernal pacing and the complaining and—

Idiot child looked down and my little hot pants let go of his cock as if it were on fire. Then he frowned, yanked out his mobile, and dialed.

"Greg, I need a—what?"

Sherlock began that wind-up toy pacing again, back and forth, back and forth, until he ran out of steam by the sitting room window.

"And this would be—"

He propped himself against the window and I swear the moment his fevered flesh touched, a hazy ring of condensation formed on the cool glass, a horny little halo around his body.

"Absolutely not, I—"

I think I was briefly resting what passes for my eyes, so it took me a moment to notice it. The very faint…thrusting.

"What did he say to that?"

Against the window.

"Well Mr. Mycroft Holmes can take his umbrella and—oh. How many tickets?"

Sherlock's dressing gown fell open again but apparently the chilly glass didn't impede the humping. I could just imagine the fascinating slick-slide view people were getting at street level.

"Not tonight, no."

Sherlock wheeled away from the window his—look, I won't keep discussing the state of his _state,_ except where it matters and right now he was getting even more hot and bothered but not _there._

"Well he can start again because we're busy this evening." Sherlock paced around John's chair three times before distractedly pressing against the back of it.

"I don't know, how could I possibly know? Something to do with flowers. Or a rehearsal. Or invitations. Or the morgue." Sherlock briefly stopped rubbing against beleaguered upholstery. "No, no, it's just me going to the morgue."

Problem child stopped moving suddenly. Listened. Scowled and rolled his eyes. "Very funny. No, I have to do something for the wedding."

Sherlock suddenly sat down. On the arm of John's chair. Clamping those long thighs tight he started…rubbing.

I may have begun humming or singing or praying about then, I'm not exactly sure.

…

John bent over the restaurant table.

"Don't, Sherlock," he said, spreading his legs.

At the register, Mr. Chatterjee made change for a large group of stiletto-clad construction workers.

"We can't _do_ it here," John said, hiking up his pretty, summery skirt, beneath which he wore exactly nothing.

Most of the workers left, two however, traded heels and returned to their seats.

"Not where everyone can see," John reached behind him, groping, groping—ah ha!—for Sherlock's erection.

A party of ten entered, filling Speedy's remaining empty chairs.

As Mr. Chatterjee took that party's order, dream John slid slowly back onto dream Sherlock's cock and he started to damn well _ride._

And in a bed in a room in a flat labeled 221B, John Watson started coming.

Again.

…

Sherlock hung his head off the edge of the sofa, propped his legs up against the flocked wall paper…

"If John learns about this, you'll be the star at your own crime scene."

…and shoved the Union Jack pillow firmly between his legs…

"Molly's colleague is going to teach me a dance—what? Yes, the one shaped like an aubergine—so that after the wedding I—"

…and proceeded to do vaguely erotic things to it.

"I know he's very good, that's why Mrs. Hudson suggested I ask him."

And I can guarantee you the only one who realized what was going on was me.

"It would easier to tell you who she _doesn't_ know."

Casually, as if reaching for—I don't know, something you reach for casually—Sherlock tugged another cushion from the end of the couch. Between those bare legs it went.

"Yes, tell him he'll have to make arrangements for—"

A long arm toward the other end of the couch and that fat old paisley thing was snatched up and—you'll forgive the pun—pressed into service.

"Yes, well Mycroft would say that, wouldn't he?"

Apparently having reached the maximum number of pillows he could jam between his thighs, Sherlock clamped his legs together and started to writhe.

"W-what?"

Perched on the mantle a dozen feet distant, if _I_ could hear Sherlock had gone a bit breathy, you know Lestrade could.

"Nothing…I…no, no, John's sleeping, don't be absurd. Why on earth—"

Bright Eyes lifted his head. Took note of the carnival of cushions upon which he was attempting a carnal act. He batted them away as if utterly shocked to find them there.

"Look, I have things to _do,"_ he groused at either Greg or his unrelieved erection, I couldn't tell. "Yes, tomorrow or the day after will be fine. Check with Mrs. Hudson. Or John. Or the pope for all I care. Do they still have popes?"

I don't now what Greg said, but frankly it doesn't damn well matter at this point, does it?

…

John woke up.

A little.

Then John woke up a bit more and realized he was sticky; kind of gross. So of course he did the most natural thing in the world: Shoved his hand south, to check on the state of affairs.

His affair was stiff as a week-old baguette.

"Sh'lock?" he murmured hopefully, apparently so drunk on sex hormones he could neither lift his head nor enunciate.

As Shlock did not immediately respond, John did the _second _most natural thing in the world: He pressed his face into his fiancé's pillow and breathed deep.

Then the good doctor shoved his own pillow between his manly thighs and started humping that thing like a giddy, engaged rabbit.

About five seconds after things got a lot more sticky, John grinned himself right back to sleep.

…

Sherlock stabbed his mobile into somnolence, shoved it in his dressing gown pocket, and dropped his dressing gown to the floor.

"I'm going out. I'm…there's a case. At the Met. For me."

_It's April in London my pet, you'll need at least a sock._

I miss eyebrows. If I had eyebrows I could have raised one as I pointedly stared at the thing staring back at me.

Sherlock did not deign to acknowledge the pink elephant in the room (so to speak) he simply snatched up last night's pair of hastily shed pants from under the coffee table and trip-walked into them.

Upon completion of these acrobatics he was given pause.

You know how snug he favours most of his clothes, yes? Well then you'll be unsurprised to learn part of Sherlock's unrelieved anatomy stuck out the top of a pair of already too-small briefs and looked him right in the eye. So to speak.

Tentatively, delicately, as if defusing a bomb, he tried shoving his anatomy _down _and _in _but gave up when he heard his own moan.

"Y-you'll…" Sherlock paused to breathe; right now it was emphatically not boring. "…tell John where I've gone?"

_Of course I will._

Thus reassured, Sherlock tugged a shirt from under the sofa, was buttoning the second cuff when he realized the sleeves barely reached the middle of his forearms. That's when Sherlock Holmes last frayed nerve gave way.

"I don't have _time_ for all of these _clothes."_

I seriously miss eyebrows. If I had eyebrows I'd raise the other one as I pointedly stared toward the bedroom hallway.

"Who has time for all of these—"

Sherlock shut up. We both held our breath.

And there it was again. A moan.

_John._

"John."

Frozen on the spot, stymied, possibly so over-aroused he was struck dumb, Sherlock Holmes looked at me and I looked at him.

_Sherlock?_

Another moan.

_Sherlock?_

Another. This time from Sherlock.

_Go!_

"What?"

_Go!_

He went.

…

John Watson does not care much for hot tubs.

However, in this fine dream this was one fucking _fine_ hot tub.

To start with, there were an ungodly number of bubbly jets and there was some creatively placed levers that were just the right size to—oh _god._

_That._

…

Sherlock peered around the bedroom door.

On the bed was a John-sized lump. A breathy, moany, John-sized lump.

Sherlock could see no part of John in this John-ish lump, but he is not a super genius for nothing. He damn well _deduced _a John beneath that duvet, you better believe he did, and so Sherlock crept toward that bed soft and hopeful and horny.

"John?"

Silence.

"John? John? _John?"_

A year from now Sherlock will remember this day and have no conscious recollection that he was nervous about waking his fiancé. He'll remember talking with me and Greg, he'll think he remembers something about a possible case, and he'll remember how it felt when John slid deep and right—

Sorry, jumping ahead.

"JohnJohnJohn?"

Silence. And then some awfully beautiful things happened.

John moaned.

And John rolled onto his back and kicked off the covers.

The erection thus unveiled caused Sherlock to fall to his knees.

"Oh dear god please."

Sherlock's not a pray-er but give him enough empirical evidence and you can convince him fairies are real, some straight men are bisexual, and there is a higher being and he/she/it hears our pleas.

"Mmm, iss'not gonna fuck itself," murmured a dozy doctor in a sleepy sing-song voice.

Unaware of a time before this time, of an hour or a day wherein he wasn't so horny he was pretty sure brushing his own hair would make him come, at first Sherlock looked right in John's heavy-lidded eyes and didn't know what to do.

Oh he _did_ things, like blinking so fast he got woozy and dropping his jaw until that voluptuous mouth hung open, but he didn't actually do anything sexually _useful._

And then Sherlock Holmes bolted to his feet and rushed out of the room so fast he clipped the doorway with his shoulder, careened into the hallway wall, and then nearly tripped on his own big feet.

I don't think he noticed. After his mad dash all he did was stand stock-still and naked in the middle of the lounge, arms out, fingers unfurled, sensing-looking-feeling-_sniffing_ for—

_Bookshelf!_

Sherlock lunged at the shelf right of my skull.

_Other shelf!_

He lunged at the shelf left of my skull.

_Other other shelf!_

Realization dawned and he flew over the coffee table, grabbed the bottle of lube they'd left on the shelf beside the sofa and—

—it squirted clean out his hand and clattered to the floor.

We both stared at it as if it would move on its own and then when nothing happened, Sherlock lunged, snatched, tripped, and turned in one train-crash balletic motion and was gone before I could even blink.

And then, once again, Sherlock peered around the bedroom doorway.

The John-shaped lump that had no actual John in evidence had returned.

"Oh dear god no," prayed the man new to prayer.

And then it happened again, just like that: The lump stirred, and once more a sleepy fiancé was unveiled. "Wh'tre you waitin' for," he murmured, blinking slow. "C'mere."

Sherlock c'mere'd as close as the edge of the bed and then stopped. Fuck John? Suck John? On John? In—

Before Sherlock could end up sounding like a pornographic Dr. Seuss, John Watson made his feelings known. He took hold of his cock with a sturdy fist and pointed it straight on up. After a moment's drowsy thought he pumped his hips twice to elaborate.

And that was the end of that.

Sherlock yanked the cap off the lube, squirted half the bottle into his palm, bent over and shoved two lubed fingers so far up his own bum he may have tickled a kidney.

Then, before anyone could say anything, Sherlock clambered onto that bed, positioned himself over John's erection, and he sank on _down._

And oh dear god it was heavenly. With that first thrust a choir of angels broke into lusty song. With the second and third thrust everyone present began speaking in tongues. By the fourth and the fifth and the sixth jab it's certain a celestial host had taken up residence in their privates. By the seventh and the eighth plunge John Watson and Sherlock Holmes happily took communion, if by communion you mean came with a shout, a holler, and then a sigh.

Well then. I think I need a rest.

Oh, except here I've gone on for thousands and thousands of words about what was really the least important part of that day.

Because after the boys curled into John- and Sherlock-shaped lumps under the duvet, and after they slept well into the afternoon, and after they woke and accused each other of making an appalling mess of the sheets, and after _that_ lead to making a truly unspeakable mess of the sheets, well after all of that the boys, at last satiated and content and, many hours later, even presentable, well after all _that_ someone went and got stroppy, and someone else got defensive, and someone else entirely Said Things and then everyone was so annoyed that someone called the wedding off.

I swear, if I wasn't already dead, I'd probably kill them.

_Read my tags: Sex & humor, sex & humor! This story is not going suddenly angsty. You can not have angst when there are this many erections. It's illegal. So. Just…it's all right. I promise. P.S. This time I remembered to include reader-provided words! In this chapter are pillows, umbrella, tickets, slick, and slide. Thank you Moonblossom, Promisofflight, The-Visual, SeddieShortBus, and Dromeda._


	7. Chapter 7

"The wedding's off."

Mycroft Holmes stood straight-backed on the pavement outside the Criterion.

Before him bustled busy Piccadilly crowds, above him flashed the relentless, over-bright lights of the Circus. And from the mobile at his ear there came the soft, velvet-steel voice of a very tiny, very angry woman.

"I began this, I will end this."

Mycroft didn't pace the pavement outside the restaurant's fine dark doors. As he listened he did not fidget, fiddle, or fuss. The British government learned long ago how to control nerves, and it is in the nature of diplomats—and that is certainly what Mycroft Holmes is—to keep their feelings close to the vest.

"But first, absolutely first, I will end _them."_

That's not to say the elder Holmes did not have feelings, he did. It's virtually guaranteed that a man who speaks of the extraneous nature of emotions is attempting to deny the seething roil of his own. That said, Mycroft's learned to hide their outward manifestation, unlike his brother, who barely even tries.

As such, and though he was pretty much inwardly flying off the handle, Mycroft kept his mouth well shut and Mycroft _listened._

"And I'll do it slowly, you just see if I don't. Do you hear me Mycroft Holmes?"

Because he is a perspicacious man, Mycroft knew the question was rhetorical and so he remained silent. He would speak soon. In just a little bit. When the time was right. And the time _would_ be right and Mycroft _would_ speak and he would _make _things right, for that is what Mycroft does.

But first he gathers data, synthesizes it with that machine-like brain, and then to the powers that be (or the real powers behind them) Mycroft _speaks._ His measured words convince, calm, cajole. They stop wars or start them and, to be frank, in the use of words Mycroft believes himself singularly gifted.

_However…_

"They'll regret this day _all_ their days."

…_you_ try engaging in the diplomacy dance with a miniature tornado, one so vexed she was possibly still working on the same breath with which her call began.

"And I'll begin by taking them apart in pieces."

As if on cue, dazzling Piccadilly lights went blood red, drenching Mycroft and the boisterous crowds in the vivid colour of gore.

"And I'll begin with their you-know-whatsits—"

There on a public pavement, outside a refined and century-old dining institution, Mycroft closed his light-stunned eyes in gratitude. If the word penis—or worse, cock, dick, or god-forbid wang—had crossed Mrs. Hudson's lips, Mycroft was fairly certain his blush would have rivaled the signage.

"—since neither has managed to keep it in his trousers for more than ten minutes at a time."

It's the curse of the brilliant to have lavish imaginations. As such, Mycroft had not even the teensiest trouble bringing up imagery to go along with my Lizzie's earthy commentary. That awkward flush Mycroft had forestalled previously now presented itself just in time for all of Piccadilly to bathe him in footlight-bright illumination.

_This would not do._

Mycroft took a breath. It was, he surmised, _time._ Time to do what he does. Time to derail the furious freight train that was his brother's Lilliputian landlady. It was well past time for Mycroft Holmes to—

Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson barged out the fine front doors of the Criterion, walked into Mycroft's personal space and glared right on up at him.

"So help me that's what I'm going to do Mycroft Holmes."

For reasons unknown Mycroft kept his mobile pressed to his ear. The one on which he had been having a conversation with the woman who now bristled in front of him.

_"After _I cancel a wedding not one of you seems interested in helping me plan, some of you going so far as to _not show up for a very expensive rehearsal dinner at an extremely fancy restaurant."_

Lizzie frowned, realized she was veering slightly from grammatical clarity, and so got back on track with basic, declarative sentences: "I am canceling this wedding. I will no longer herd those boys like cats. But first I'm going back inside and attempting to eat a thousand pounds worth of fairy cakes. Afterward, I'm going to murder your brother and his fiancé."

My dear Beth scrunched up her nose as if already whiffing the day-old corpses. "And don't you even try and talk me out of it Mycroft Holmes."

As if cued, the dramatic neon flashed, well, dramatically, and bathed a wee woman in a marvelous, self-righteous blue.

And at last and finally and _thank god_ Mycroft could do what it is Mycroft does. The man who did not fidget and did not pace and had been so very silent while a storm raged, that man bent slightly at the waist, brought his mouth near a soft froth of feathery hair as if the sheer shouty volume of the lightning necessitated close contact, and Mycroft Holmes whispered into the ear of John and Sherlock's enraged landlady the exact two words she most needed to help calm her fractious heart.

"I'll help."

…

The men now slated for murder by their landlady and her government goon were at that moment jumbled together like naked puppies, snoozing peacefully in their bed. Deeply enfiancéd, appallingly sticky with each other's come, and dozing right on through their own rehearsal dinner, my over-sleeping sweethearts were about to rouse and find themselves so profoundly _aroused_ they would begin having at one another within seconds of full consciousness.

But first there were dreams.

For John Watson those dreams traveled a by-now familiar path: Alice-in-Wonderland weird by way of a Soho sex shop. Which meant he and Sherlock rutting and humping and moaning, busily using anything at hand to aid their sexual congress, whether that be spoons, skim milk, or, in one instance, an anatomically-correct gingerbread man.

Unlike that morning, when he had yet to be fucked soundly into the mattress, John did not come in these dreams, merely floated lustily along on the Good Ship Debauchery, giving and getting with wild, heady abandon.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was currently having a lusty, guilty, pseudo-Edwardian dream; sort of Downton Abbey only without the beading or below-stairs contretemps.

In the good detective's complex dream there was a crowded Belle Époque ballroom, a lovely orchestra playing something tinkly, and a tuxedoed John and Sherlock lurking in ballroom shadow, really super-keen on getting their cocks up one another's arses as soon as humanly possible.

The problem was not, as you might imagine, the gathered crowd. Neither John nor Sherlock were shy about whipping it out between zippered teeth, but each time one or the other began to ram home John would say something like, "Oh this was a cracking good idea, Sherlock—open wider love—the party was driving me mad," or "Deeper my good man—unf, that's it!—that soiree was about to kill me dead with ennui."

(Don't look at me, I'm not Sherlock's sub-conscious, I'm the only marginally more lucid Greek chorus.)

Anyway, the _actual _problem, as you may have deduced by now, was that Sherlock had, that morning, agreed he and his future spouse would attend a bachelor party. Perhaps two. Sherlock had, however, neglected to clear this with his future spouse. Mostly because he knew John would 1) grimly laugh at him and 2) be emphatically disinclined to present at such festivities.

Kindly attend:

* The last time John went to a party at Sherlock's instigation the good doctor was accidentally stabbed in the arse with a twenty-one gauge hypodermic needle.

* The time before the last time John went to a party at Sherlock's request he was bitten on the arse by a centipede. The resulting wound became so inflamed that sitting, much less back-end sexual congress, was out of the question for an entire week.

* The time before the other two times John went to a party at Sherlock's behest someone passed around bloody Mary's made with actual blood and John had had a good two and a half of them before the jape came to light—and then so did everything John had consumed that evening.

So you'll understand that Sherlock understands that John is so not likely to want to go to any party to which Sherlock may or may not wish to go. And to this bachelor party Greg Lestrade was spearheading Sherlock most emphatically did want to go.

_(I told you, did I not tell you?)_

Uh, anyway, all of this is about to be revealed at perhaps the least-opportune time—call it four minutes hence and exactly at the moment Sherlock begins ejaculating into John's luscious back end.

…

"So. The murder. Where shall we do it, Mr. Holmes?"

Comfortably seated at the Criterion's finest table, Mycroft drank Irish breakfast tea while Lizzie stabbed a praline and polenta fairy cake with a tiny, glittering fork. She held Mycroft's eye as she eviscerated her delicacy and it would not be far wrong to say the government man was, for a moment, loath to speak.

Only once Elizabeth began the finicky process of eating with her petite flatware did Mycroft find courage. "I was thinking, perhaps, French Polynesia."

Lizzie's wee fork, freighted with a skosh of lovely pineapple frosting, paused mid-air. She looked at Mycroft with a dead-steady gaze. "Do go on."

Mycroft signaled for more tea and moved his chair close to a small woman capable of a very big grudge. "I think I have an idea," he said, proceeding to whisper awhile into her shell-like ear.

Only after Lizzie had finished her cake, and only after Mycroft had enjoyed another cup of tea, did my dear girl say very softly but quite firmly, "Mycroft Holmes, you are out of your mind."

...

"I'm—"

John's grip was tenuous.

"—not—"

And he wasn't sure he could hold it long.

"—sure—"

But he would do his damned best.

"—this—"

It seemed to help if he tightened his legs.

"—oh god—"

So he firmly wrapped them around his fiancé's waist.

"—was—"

And pressed his back hard against the mantle, arms spread across it.

"—a—"

And each time Sherlock firmed his stance and rammed up…

"—_oh _fuck _me—"_

…John sort of _bounced_ up…

"—good—"

…and a little bit lost his grip…

"—idea—"

…but the penetration was so eye-rollingly fantastic…

"—god oh yes—"

…he couldn't bring himself to ask Sherlock to put him down…

"—Sherlock!"

…and so John held on and Sherlock pounded away and everyone would have had perfectly lovely orgasms within the next twenty seconds but John, silly John, he chose this deeply ill-advised moment to ask his lover a question.

"Sherlock?" *Thrust*Bounce*Thrust*

Galloping toward sunset, Sherlock was completely focused on the dual goals of not dropping John and getting off spectacularly.

"Before, when we woke up," *Bounce*Thrust*Bounce*

But the last tendrils of Sherlock's guilt-rich dream still lingered. So when the good doctor began speaking, there was a hitch in Sherlock's stride, so to speak, and though he was about to say something like _could you please hold that thought until we orgasm John?_ it was too late. The good doctor completed his thought exactly as Sherlock started to come.

"—why did you say 'It's all right John?'"

_As he was ejaculating _Sherlock withdrew his cock from John's arse. He placed his fiancé gently on his feet. Then, still firing away in ever-weakening spurts, Sherlock turned from the mantle and proceeded to the sofa, where he reclined with a pained grunt and a magazine as if…as if…_dear god I don't even know how to finish that sentence._

It took me, uh, it took John, _John_ every last one of sixty-three seconds to gather his scattered wits. When he had finally done so, just, my BAMF little warrior walked over to his fiancé and said:

"Sherlock Holmes you have several choices. You can either be a gentleman and finish sodomizing me properly. You can climb aboard _this—"_ John gestured south, "or you can tell me what the fuck is going on."

John underscored his statement with hands on hips and a dramatic bit of leakage.

"So. Which is it?"

Sherlock's reply was immediate and not even in the top one hundred replies John would have expected.

_I do like the smell of a wee tiny baby cliffhanger in the morning. Reader words used in this chapter include pineapple, awkward, dance, and __perspicacious__. Thank you Livi Ceja, Dromeda, Rox712, and Nonsequiturtle!_


	8. Chapter 8

"This is a fantastic advertisement."

Scootching his bare bum more deeply into the sofa, Sherlock would not meet John's eye. Actually Sherlock was actively hiding behind his magazine. Being as _Criminology Monthly_ is smaller than a sheet of A4 and Sherlock is significantly larger, very little of him was safe from the good doctor's gaze.

And, if I'm going to be entirely crude—and you know that I am—I'll say _either_ gaze, because there is another part of the male anatomy that can seem to look at you with a cyclopsian stare and—

Okay, you got it. Fine. Yes. Moving on.

"The adver—what? I—what? Sherlock bloody Holmes what is this about?

The man being addressed was _keenly_ interested in that page three enticement—which seemed to include a four-colour photo of an attractive man using a lock-pick kit with his mouth—and as such did not appear to hear his husband speaking.

This gave the man's husband time to pause and watch in brief fascination as Sherlock's penis finished the last of its orgasm. There were two spasms. A bit of a dribble.

When at last the only thing moving was John's tongue slicking across his lips, the good doctor shook his head and began again. "If I start to _count—"_

Sherlock bolted right on up from that sofa and shot noodly arms in the air to dramatically underscore his dramatic blamelessness. "It's Greg! He wants to have a thing! An event! A sort of proceeding! To mark or observe or commemorate our getting married! I told him you don't like proceedings! AndIAlsoToldHimYesWe'dGoIWantToGoJohnI'mSorryWhat?"

It was at the tiny and tender age of seven that Sherlock Holmes first learned the fine art of obfuscation. The knowledge came after destroying another family heirloom with an experiment that involved Mentos, cola, and the observing of how far this combustive mixture would propel a brace of frozen peas.

So, because Sherlock's had many, many years' experience muddying the waters until everyone present has forgotten why there are frozen peas on the ceiling or, in this case, why come is dribbling from two cocks but not two arses…because…then…if…

Now I've completely forgotten what I was—

Right! I remember! The thing is, John's so used to Sherlock pretending to be deaf when confronted, or trying to obscure anything remotely like wrong-doing, or outright badly lying about it, that John was shocked silent at getting to the heart of the matter pretty much in one go easy peasy.

Two drips later John shook his head. Again. "You committed us to attending a bachelor party, is that what you're saying?"

Sherlock blinked. He maybe again waved a long bare arm to revisit the whole blameless motif.

Let me tell you something you already know: John is taken off at the knees by cute. By endearing. Tender. Vulnerable. Some days all Problem Child has to do is admit to a heart-felt emotion, say something sweet, or just blink wide those blue-greys at John and the good doctor just up and forgives the human bile on his biscuits or the second stomach pumping of the year.

So when Sherlock stood there all naked and oozy, admitting he really wanted to go to a silly party, John was about to gather the big git in his arms and have his tender way with him when not one, not two, not three, but at least four mobiles fired off in that quiet flat.

John jumped a mile. "Dear god in heaven when did we get fifteen phones?"

Sherlock's naked arm was maybe still in the air, maybe still doing the not-my-fault-wave, and so he kind of just left it there as all the mobiles currently in 221B (there were actually seven and there's a story behind that, one that Sherlock will confess to John _at another time that is not this time)_ rang their fool heads clean off.

After a half dozen more electronic trills, John took hold of his cock—still marvelously erect and interested in being rendered less so—and took hold of the nearest ringing phone, and clear as day he stood there and debated which he would deal with first.

Unfortunately the answer was well beyond him, for the British government is as persistent as the British government's brother and there was something about the persistent _persistence_ of the ringing that let John know that as delightful as it might be to give in to the demands of his dick, he was first going to have to answer the damn phone.

Still holding on to himself with one hand, he answered the mobile with the other—and every other phone in that flat stopped ringing at once.

"Whatever it is, it best be bleeding or burning because I have important _doctory_ business to—" John Watson stood straight and tall, gripping his cock more firmly, as if in need of a stabalising influence. "What now?"

John listened, his expression the kind of expression into which a consulting fiancé could read anything, depending on how guilty that fiancé felt about the other long story that he will confess to John at a time that is not this time but—

John abruptly hung up the phone. John looked at Sherlock. Sherlock—other arm tentatively lofting so as to insist upon his innocence if required—looked at John. John said:

"Get dressed. Mycroft's sending a car. He says they're about to arrest Mrs. Hudson."

Sherlock at last lowered both arms. Well then. There was no way at all he could be blamed for _this._

In about twenty minutes he'd learn he was quite wrong about that.

…

The Criterion is a wonderfully dichotomous place.

As loud as a fussy grand dame with its glittering gold-tile ceiling and scarlet upholstery, as refined as that same lady demurely dressed in family-heirloom finery, one feels the warring urges to whisper over the scones or giggle loudly and snap photos.

Fortunately, no matter the urge to which you give in, you'll be well-catered to, tended by a staff trained to know precisely when to see the things they see, and when it is most expedient to be selectively blind.

Which goes far toward explaining why not one of them were currently noticing a small woman of seventy-five standing on a plush chair, threatening to lay waste to all the things her companion held most dear.

…

Baker Street is one point eight miles from the Criterion restaurant and under current conditions John and Sherlock had approximately sixteen minutes to burn before arriving at their destination.

There are a lot of things a man on a sexual hair-trigger can do in sixteen minutes. As a matter of fact he can do those things at least twice, and despite believing his landlady is about to be arrested, and notwithstanding that his fiancé seems perfectly content to sit in the back of their chauffeured car intent on looking blameless, and regardless of the fact that they do not know the driver of the chauffeured vehicle…in spite of all of this John Watson found himself in great want of a bit of fancy fingering, a discreet blow, or a quick wank under cover of a great coat.

He was about to casually mention this fact to his intended when his intended began to check voice messages.

Fifteen seconds later Sherlock handed John John's own mobile—John doesn't really think of anything in the flat as strictly his any more because if any of it _was_ strictly his then most of it wouldn't be in Sherlock's pocket, on Sherlock's desk, or rigged to one of Sherlock's experiments, now would it?—and proceeded to look out the window as if he knew no one within his immediate vicinity.

So, instead of suggesting his betrothed help him dispatch his erection, the good doctor listened to his voice message.

"Sherlock," went the first, "please tell me what undetectable poisons one can purchase at a well-stocked Tesco. Thank you so much."

John listened to the message twice through. When he was done he shook his head, at first worried, then unaccountably guilty, and then right on back to worried. "I don't understand."

Sherlock looked at John and clear as day his expression said _well you went and made her mad about something didn't you, because though the message is addressed to me certainly it has nothing at all to do with me, being as it is not a message on my phone and therefore I am blameless, as in not to blame for whatever it is blame is most likely being affixed._

It's good John can't read minds because reading Sherlock's at this time would not have ended well. Instead John was about to say something about worry, and maybe something about guilt, when he realized there was another message after this message.

John Watson pressed play.

…

An American senator unexpectedly gave birth at one of the Criterion's back tables last month.

The aforementioned staff, so well-trained that one need merely glance at a tea cup to moments later find it refilled, responded so serenely to this emergency that not one other diner knew the event was taking place _as_ it took place. As a matter of fact, so calm were the servers that the new mother found time to enjoy an aperitif after as she waited for the cab which would take she and her healthy newborn—which she would call Piccadilly—to hospital.

This is by way of explaining how Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson managed to throw twenty six fairy cakes at Mycroft Holmes—missing him eighteen times—without a single other patron being aware of the contretemps occurring at that now discreetly-infamous back table.

…

"Sherlock dear," began the second message on John Watson's mobile, "how soon after death does a corpse begin to smell?"

John looked at Sherlock. John shook his head. John leaned toward Sherlock and said in a soft and unnerved whisper, "I don't understand."

The newly-engaged consulting detective wondered if maybe they should turn the cab around and flee the city. Then he realized that this would cause him to be complicit with John in some manner of wrong-doing and that that would then put him in Mrs. Hudson's sights, so instead of saying anything at all Sherlock scootched away from John just a teensy little bit.

John's mobile made that informative sound, the one that tells you in chipper tones that yes, you do indeed still have messages you have not yet heard.

John pressed play.

…

Mycroft has done many things in the name of government intrigue. On more than one occasion he has lied, has Mr. Holmes, on fewer he's done the far more risky thing of telling the absolute truth.

Over many years and in many dark-paneled rooms he's withheld information, offered it, sold it, given it, or pretended he has no clue what in the world you're talking about. In the name of the Queen and with multi-layered machinations in mind, he's introduced the mad to the complicit, the soldier to the saint, the revolutionary to the royal and made sure that human nature has taken its British-suiting, inevitable course.

And through all of this Mycroft Holmes has remained starched, straight-backed, and serene. His short ginger waves have not one time lost their coif, his bespoke suits have not given up their crease or his shoes their shine. Whether the stratagem involves something as delicate as an election or a thing as vital as one monarch marrying the 'correct' other, Mycroft has served his nation with flawless aplomb.

Which is all by way of telling you that right now Sherlock's brother's body is decorated with clashing smears of really excellent frosting. There is a hunter green dollop in his fine red fringe. Two thick blue smears bedecking grey pinstripes, and across his smooth forehead there's something in a frankly frightening shade of blood red.

And through it all Mycroft has sat stock still, softly murmuring, "Good lady, I think maybe you've misunderstood."

Mrs. Hudson may or may not have misconstrued the thing that Mycroft Holmes suggested approximately twenty minutes previous, but as she continues to fling fairy cakes he's finding that she is mis-aiming less and less. Some small, ignored part of Mycroft's mind begins to hope she socks him in the mouth with one of those little treats rather soon.

…

"John, which would incapacitate a man more quickly: A blow to the head or one to the heart?"

That the messages left on John's phone were now for John somehow increased the good doctor's apprehension so sharply he briefly contemplated writing himself a prescription for a rather potent anti-anxiety medication.

"She's talking to me now," he whispered to Sherlock by way of the obvious since, at this point, he's playing each message so loudly that even the driver can hear them as they unspool with frightening, little-girl-voiced venom.

She will never admit this, not even to herself in the dark of an insomnia-filled night, but during the short drive across town that same driver three times wondered if maybe she ought to just drop her charges off somewhere down by the river instead of getting anywhere near Piccadilly.

…

Based off the educated guess that the urgency of Mycroft's call had motivated John and Sherlock to dress in approximately three minutes, and presuming the traffic flow had remained steady, the elder Holmes was certain to within ninety-three percent probability that his brother and future brother-in-law would arrive at the restaurant some time in the next minute and a half.

As such Mycroft was reasonably certain he could cope with getting pelted in the other eye with small pastries if indeed that was as hard as Mrs. Hudson could throw.

…

That was _not_ as hard as Mrs. Hudson could throw and you'd be surprised how desperately pistachio frosting stings when it's smeared across your cornea.

…

They were idling at the kerb.

They were listening to the final message on John's phone and all was coming clear.

"Boys. I've overlooked my defaced flocking. I've pretended I didn't see the stains behind the refrigerator. I've consistently maintained to Mycroft the fiction that neither of you were anywhere near Big Ben last August. I've asked for nothing in return, not one thing. Except this: Let me enjoy marrying you two off, let me experience the fancy wedding I never had."

John looked at Sherlock. Sherlock, so help him, looked at John as if it had been _his_ idea to do that thing inside London's famous clock tower, as if it had been John's experiment that had produced the shocking blemishes behind the fridge, and as if it had been John who had completely forgotten they were supposed to go to a rehearsal dinner earlier that night, which, indeed, John had.

And while no one in their right might would expect Sherlock to recall that last bit of important minutiae—as a matter of fact no one even expects the man to get to his own wedding unless taken by the hand and lead—someone needs to cut the good doctor some slack.

But that's neither here nor there. John and Sherlock now know the fracas into which they're heading and they understand that however much they'd like to pretend they're without blame they are so deeply decorated with guilt that both are about to ask the driver to head to Heathrow where they—

The door to the limousine opened and the Criterion's doorman clicked his heels smartly.

"Welcome gentlemen, Mr. Holmes is expecting you."

…

No one said anything for ten minutes.

It was clear that Mycroft had lied about Mrs. Hudson's immanent arrest, but from the appearance of the man—John was going to have to take a look at that shockingly red eye—they had not arrived a moment too soon.

And though their landlady seemed intent on killing them with the tension of her unspoken invective, that was not to be. For in the end Sherlock could not do two things: keep his hands off the fairy cakes and keep his pretty mouth shut.

Fortunately the good detective surprised his future-husband for the second time that day: While devouring wee cupcakes one right after the other, he also magnanimously took the blame.

"—and the Met had critical questions about last month's arson case and there were two experiments in the bathtub at a vital stage and when Detective Inspector Lestrade called with the cold case about the clown allergic to coconuts—"

How the man chewed, swallowed, and spoke all at once John didn't know, but he _did_ know that what Sherlock said sounded true because it _was_ true. All of these things had indeed occurred today and for anyone normal they'd have taken up a great deal of morning, afternoon, and evening.

Sherlock, as you may be slightly aware, is not normal.

For he'd taken care of each of these before the sun had fully risen on the new day and with the copious amount of free time thus presented he'd proceeded to pace and chatter and bother me to distraction—as I believe I relayed several chapters ago—until John eventually woke, after which they did unto one another, slept again, again Sherlock woke first, again he solved a case on the phone, and yet again he went in search of his fiancé, who this time he found merrily wanking in the shower.

The good detective joined the good doctor there, finished his wanking for him, had the favour returned, washed his intended, fingered his intended, proceeded to then bugger his intended, fell out of the shower with his intended still attached, completed his carnal act as they grunted on the loo rug, got John off a second time, found aspirin for both of them—"Sherlock, are you sure these aren't those weird pills that made me sound like a little girl for half a day?"—wherein they both retired to bed as the sun was just entering their bedroom window, passed out cold and eventually John woke and they did it all again until they'd humped right on through their own rehearsal dinner.

That part, however, went unsaid.

Once Sherlock finished taking blame and as he was on his fourteenth little cake, Mrs. Hudson at last replied but it wasn't Sherlock she addressed, nor John, it was Mycroft.

Sort of.

"Mr. Holmes wanted to send me away to French Polynesia. He wanted to remove me from the wedding planning. He wanted to _do it himself."_

This shocking news caused a wide range of responses.

Mrs. Hudson toyed with a pink fairy cake as if thinking about throwing it.

John sat up straight in his chair and blinked fast.

Sherlock caught his brother's eye and without so much as a bob of the head thanked him.

For the best way to prevent someone in a righteous fit of pique from walking away from planning a wedding is to tell her that, not only will you help her walk away from planning a wedding and take over duties yourself, you will also send her somewhere pretty and far, far away while you do so.

As deductively brilliant as his brother, Sherlock of course recognized Mycroft's stunning stratagem for what it was. Mrs. Hudson did not and neither did John.

Which explains why John just went right ahead and said the thing that caused Sherlock to stop stuffing fairy cakes into his mouth and go very hard and maybe a little bit breathless.

"That's it. Let's get married sooner. Would that help, Mrs. Hudson? If we got married sooner?"

_I promise I'll finish this story—which is giving me fits—before we're all of us retired. In the meantime I'm not lazy, I've got two ten thousand word stories waiting, two Minutiae, a tale for "A Little Birdie Told Me," and possibly I've been breeding unicorns too, I don't know. I want _you_ to know that I'll never, ever, not one time _ever_ leave a story unfinished unless I'm abducted. Even then I expect I'd be inspired to write porn if the aliens really do that anal probe thing for which they're so famous. But perhaps I've said too much…_

_P.S. The only reader-provided word I used this time is allergic, which I _think_ was provided by Forgotten-and-Sherlocked but I'm not sure._


	9. Chapter 9

Gregory Lestrade is used to cryptic. He's actually grown quite fond of it.

Greg's always enjoyed crossword puzzles and the occasional riddle, so it makes sense he'd find it a pleasant challenge over the years, deciphering Sherlock's texts. Including:

05:13 PM: Scones have raisins.

Greg eventually realized this was Sherlock's way of clearing the suspect, who's beloved cat had a profound allergy to dried fruit, making it unlikely he had baked the poisoned pastries which had been used to murder the cranky restaurant critic.

12:20 PM: Limp puts lie to alibi.

Eventually Greg figured out that this was Sherlock's way of pointing out the slight hitch in the victim's step which, upon research, proved to be the result of a rusty nail puncture in her heel which placed her at the building site she claimed she never visited.

02:21 AM: Check provenance of the breasts.

All right this one sent Greg right around the giddy bend. He was damned if he was going to call Sherlock to get an explanation for it because, well, _look at it. _If that's not a puzzle right there the detective inspector does not know the definition of puzzle.

It took Greg the better part of the day to figure this one out, a day in which he for the most part achieved only two other things—walking down to the river and staring at the bright water until he went sun-blind, and eating way too many donuts.

By the time he noticed he had a headache _and _a toothache it was 6:32 on a nice summer evening and he still had no clue what Sherlock meant.

And then he did.

The breasts did not refer to the strikingly copious pair the victim had—which anyone, gay, straight, or not Sherlock, could be excused for presuming—but to the _chicken_ breasts she monthly bought from somewhere in south Cumbria.

As it turned out, so regularly had she made the two hundred mile journey north that the farmer from whom she bought not only knew the name of her dogs and her multi-million pound company, the pernicious poultry farmer knew where she lived and took the opportunity to have his adult children steal her blind while she was up north making her fowl purchases and enjoying a complimentary chicken tikka masala.

All of this is by way of explaining that Greg was long used to cryptic texts from Sherlock and unless he had the chief superintendent breathing down his neck, the detective inspector rather enjoyed taking the time to use his detecting skills when he received one.

He was not, however, used to enigmatic messages from John.

Yet that was what he'd got last night and so help him he swore he'd figure it out before daybreak because really anything would be better than lying on the sofa for another night staring at the ceiling and wondering if Mycroft's arse was as fantastic as Sherlock's.

(Why Greg knows what Sherlock's fundament looks like is a story for another time and no it has nothing to do with anything you're thinking so just stop thinking that.)

Anyway, it was late in a long day and Greg needed the diversion so when the text arrived…

09:42 PM: Tomorrow for do?

…he squinted at it and for only two seconds did he think about replying: _WTF, John?_

After those seconds elapsed he realised he'd been staring at the ceiling of his tiny bedsit for an hour, distractedly rubbing himself to full erection, and rather than continue along that frustrating path he'd delve into a nice stupid puzzle so that he'd stop thinking about delving into a nice, succulent Holmes.

Except it turned out to be no great hardship to decipher John's riddle. As a matter of fact it was kind of easy peasy.

No, the hard part came eighteen hours later and involved evening gowns.

…

But before that, Sherlock Holmes had to defuse a bomb.

Two bombs really. One petite incendiary sat on a plush chair in front of him, lining fairy cakes up before her, a general mobilizing a sugary army.

The other, uh, projectile was the rather large erection between Sherlock's thighs. The moment John asked if they could marry sooner Sherlock's pretty sure he swooned for the first time in his life, then got hard so fast he went light-headed. Or maybe that was a sugar high, he wasn't certain.

Either way, both bombs were primed and ready to blow, so to speak, and Sherlock knew he had to do one thing: Prevent that.

Well ha ha very much ha.

Excuse me, I'm sorry, but of the four people convened at the Criterion's far back table, the one least likely to wear the mantle of peacemaker was the dark-haired Holmes. If anyone personified foot-in-mouth disease, if anyone could accidentally start a war by the untimely divulging of an impertinent fact, that anyone would be Sherlock Bad Timing Holmes. He ruffles feathers he means to smooth, tells secrets he means to keep, and so expecting him to calm Mrs. Hudson, while he himself was awash with the intense urge to hump John's leg as he dragged him to the nearest vicar, well that was asking entirely too much.

That didn't mean Sherlock would not try.

And so, as Elizabeth Ariadne Westminster Hudson fine-tuned the placement of her sweet regiment, Sherlock Holmes rose from his chair. He then walked to the other side of the table, on whose side my wee Lizzie sat alone, and he took his place beside her.

As he did so Liz stuck out her chin, a tiny bomb of belligerence just waiting to go.

It was then that Sherlock Holmes came in close, his mouth soft against my dear girl's ear, and Sherlock Not _Always _Bad Timing Holmes, began to whisper.

...

"Not that dress Mike."

Eighteen hours later, give or take three gin and tonics, Gregory Lestrade was parsing another puzzle, and its name was Michael Heston Stamford.

Holding a frothy mauve number to his suit-clad chest the man so named asked, "Why not?"

Greg gestured with his chin and his gin. "Look in the mirror."

The good doctor turned, gazed into an ornate oval glass mounted on a pretty, flocked paper, shrugged.

"You're Caucasian, Mike, mauve does not suit your skin tone _at all."_

Stamford's an easy-going guy. This is evidenced by many things, not least of which is his friendship with Sherlock, one made long before John Watson smoothed out the prickly genius' rough edges.

Mike, however, is not strongly inclined toward cross-dressing, a realisation he's come to twice in his life. The first at a dreadful Christmas kegger the last year in college; the second right now, in the plush confines of the London Opera House's members-only function room, looking through a surprisingly-wide array of evening gowns.

"May I offer some advice?"

Yes indeed, Mike Stamford's an easy-going guy. And though he may not feel a strong draw to cross-dressing, he's quite fond of polite people who plan parties for his friends. He's also partial to those same people when they give him a glass of champagne before springing the whole "All the lads have to wear dresses to the opera," thing on him. (Mike is a bit of a big guy, but he's got the alcohol tolerance of a seven stone woman.)

"Mmmm, sure."

Greg began looking critically through the silks and sequins hanging before them. "You've a bit of a florid complexion and maybe a touch of ginger in the hair, so I'm thinking…"

The DI made a delighted ah-ha face. "This."

Lestrade held out a lovely green frock with a high bodice and filmy sleeves.

Mike Stamford pursed his lips and kind of nodded no-yes-no at it. Emphasis on the no, but with a continuing and confusing bit of yes.

"The green would look much better on you than mauve, and this one includes ties at the back, so you can wear it as loose or snug as you like."

A fresh glass of champagne had somehow appeared in Mike's hand and he had somehow drunk all of it when he noticed he was reaching for the dress and that at least one no had fallen out of the no-yes-no thing.

"Do I have to take off my clothes?"

Greg recoiled as if this were the very first foolish thing said that evening. "Oh god no, I mean you're not putting it on _now._ You could spill something on it, couldn't you?"

Greg finished the rest of his third gin and tonic—prepping parties is thirsty work, even with the help of British Government's goons. "First we'll have dinner, then go to the opera. _That's_ when we get dressed."

Mike nodded as if now it all made sense. "Is everyone dressing up? I mean John and Sherlock and everyone?"

Greg leaned toward Mike, who would later blame the DI's gin-soaked breath for pushing him well beyond tipsy, "It was Sherlock's idea, actually, the dresses. Something about something about paying back his landlady for…I don't know, I didn't really understand."

Greg held a tiny purse up against the green gown Mike still clutched to his chest, shook his head. "I bet you anything Sherlock shows up in the prettiest frock, something dramatic, probably in blood red." Greg tried another purse, grinned. "Bet he looks perfectly natural in it too, the big, pretty bastard."

Mike nodded again, unsure if it was in agreement and if so to which part?

"So wait, is, mmmm—" Mike had met Lizzie twice, but gin fumes and champagne had already substantially slowed his cognitive function, "—Mrs. Hudson coming along, too?"

Greg recoiled again. "What? Of course not, this is a _bachelor_ party." The DI held a third purse up to the doctor's dress, smiled. "You don't really invite women to a stag do, do you?"

One of the Metropolitan Police Service's finest poked around a large jeweled box, plucked out a tiara and held it near Mike's head.

And right then Michael Stamford found his cross-dressing line in the sand. "You will have to get me far drunker than I'm capable of being while conscious to get jewelry on me." Stamford waved a bare-naked hand in the air. "I don't even wear a wedding band."

Greg had taken a vacation day so he could get this event together and he'd been balls-to-the wall busy since receiving John's text last night. This accounted for his early-evening inebriation, and explained why he was close to starting a tiara-centric argument, but fortunately it was then that Rashid arrived, along with Haddad, then—

"John!"

Greg hurried to and draped himself over John in a way he's done exactly never, and proceeded to hug the small man slightly breathless. "You're getting married!"

John returned Greg's hug, then tried extracting himself from Greg's hug. This took many long moments, and an elaborate combination of pats and rubs, but eventually the DI released.

"Where's Sherlock?"

"Well," John said, "He said he had a thing, and then he wouldn't say more. Should be along soon."

Greg breathed fumes all over everything, squinted a detectivey eye and murmured, "Now what's this about eloping?"

John will never cease to be amazed at the vigour of gossip. He could whisper a secret to a half-deaf librarian at Oxford, and before he'd even made it back to London that secret would have been debated on thirteen Tumblr blogs, turned into a music video on YouTube, and filled his inbox with well-meaning advice and a great deal of spam for marital sex-aids.

John knows this for fact because it happened to him last year. And yet somehow the good doctor was still surprised Greg knew that, for about forty-two seconds eighteen hours previous, it had appeared as if he and Sherlock might marry early.

The fact that this plan had been quashed within the minute, the fact that Sherlock had been the one to quash it in a successful effort to appease their landlady, the fact that Sherlock still hadn't told him what he actually _said_ to their landlady in order to appease…well all of that didn't seem to matter.

"That was just a weird rumour, Greg. We're still getting married in, uh, three days."

Three days.

_Three days._

It was then, precisely, that John Watson's last trod-upon nerve finally gave up.

"Oh dear god."

The good doctor sat down hard. The chair in which he sat had beside it a fine mahogany table. On that fine mahogany table stood a silver tray burdened with full champagne flutes.

John saw. John reached. John drank one straight down.

Look, as much as John's on board for a party, as much as he loves the magnificent idiot he'll soon marry, John just was not sure he could survive another three days of this.

And this was the speed and lethargy with which everything moved. They seemed to be hurtling toward a fine culmination in slow-motion, if that made any sense at all and John knew—

Another glass of champagne.

—John knew that it _didn't_ make any sense at all. As a matter of fact—

"John."

—as a matter of fact, if you really wanted to know, John was pretty much—

"John."

—exhausted. There was all the work involved in the whole wedding thing yes, but there was also—

"Jooohn."

—an absolutely infeasible number of erections. John wasn't certain he could stand another three days of waking up hard, getting hard right after getting unhard, of being so horny he was aroused just watching Sherlock spit out toothpaste foam. As a matter of fact—

_"John Watson!"_

The good doctor blinked away the image of his fiancé fellating a toothbrush, crossed his legs hard, and grabbed another champagne flute. _"What?"_

DI Lestrade, hand happily occupied with yet another G&T, said intensely, conspiratorially, and amidst a frankly monumental belch, "John Watson, you need to pick a dress."

John Watson downed his third glass of bubbly. John Watson sighed. And John Watson said, "Greg, I'm too tired to play dress up. I…can I just sit this one out? I mean I'll go to the opera and we'll have a fine party but can I just keep my clothes on?"

"I'd really rather you didn't."

John, Greg, Haddad, Rashid, and the guy John always thinks of as Stephen-or-Robert turned at the sound of that deep voice.

And Greg Lestrade discovered he was wrong, wrong, _wrong._

Sherlock Holmes had not arrived at the bachelor party in a fancy red frock. Heavens no. First, that would have been gauche; second, the colour did not suit Sherlock's complexion at all.

No, Sherlock had arrived in the very opposite of basic black. Dramatically framed in the doorway, the tousle-haired consulting detective posed in floor-length finery made of—excuse my poetry—moonlight and shadow.

At first glance the gown appeared to be nothing more than body-clinging black velvet. It wasn't until Sherlock took a deep breath, took a step, then took every single gaze and dragged it across the room with him, that you saw silver filigree weaving like a sinuous dragon's tail from shoulder to hip to hem. And then it wasn't until you'd let your eyes trail leisurely along an entire six feet of _what the fuck_ that you realised your mouth was hanging open and you'd spread your legs to make room for yet another infeasible thing.

It took John half a glass of champagne and a full minute before he finally heard Sherlock talking. And it wasn't until John fortified himself with the rest of that glass that he answered the question posed.

"Fine. _Fine._ I will wear a dress, all right? But no stockings. No heels. And no panties either."

The good doctor socked back another glass of bubbly, stood up, straightened his shoulders, and said in a voice that would brook no argument…

"I'm going commando."

_This story has utterly gone off the rails. I'm reining it in next chapter and employing actual, I don't know, _story_ elements again. The infeasible erection quotient will remain however, because some things are just sacrosanct. Reader-provided words used in this chapter include mauve and frothy, thank you Mommybird and Bookwoman17NerdyMom!_


	10. Chapter 10

John stared solemnly at his hands. "Do you think Sherlock will come?"

Greg stared solemnly at his feet. "Of course he will, John, he _loves_ you."

John looked up. "What? Oh, I know that. No, I mean do you think he'll come _here?"_

DI Lestrade belched gently. "I would."

John nodded. "Me too."

Lestrade looked off into the middle distance. "He was taking off at speed though. He could be on Primrose Hill by now."

John tugged a loose thread on the hem of his dress. "I'm always impressed by how fast he can move in heels."

Greg nodded. "It's a gift."

"Didn't really have to hike the dress that high though."

"Not if he wasn't wearing panties."

"Easier to run though."

"Well, you're the one who sort of started it John. The no-panties thing."

John took that moment to shift his, um, uncontained lower contents in a moderately modest way. He wasn't going to think about having 'started it' or he'd have the intense desire to 'start it' again. "I know."

Greg looked around, unsure what to say next. Then inspiration struck. "The kilt looks fantastic."

John smoothed a hand over his satin-clad thigh. "Thanks. It's not really a kilt, though is it? It's a tartan evening dress."

"Well it suits you, John. So does the veil."

John looked at the pale tulle confection on the bench beside him. When Haddad brought the frothy thing over—"My sister's been 'white wedding' married three times; when I told her about the stag party she shoved this into my hands"—John had been delighted. He hadn't intended on wearing it or anything, he just wanted to sort of hold in his hands this clear and unambiguous Western symbol of getting married. He didn't even remember bringing it along to the opera house, but apparently he had.

Greg belched softly again and went pointedly quiet. Still staring at the veil it took the good doctor a moment to register this, but eventually he did. "Oh. Your dress is very pretty, Greg. The gathers at the waist really emphasise your shoulders."

The DI beamed in drunken serenity. "Mrs. Hudson did my colours a couple years ago. Otherwise I wouldn't have known cobalt blue suits me."

John sighed, stared glumly out the bars of their prison cell, and said. "So where do you think Sherlock is?"

...

This is the point where I pause dramatically so that you can absorb the words _prison cell._

Are you with me? Good, thank you.

...

Greg sighed and wished he was in his own borough. He'd never have been arrested in his own borough. "Somewhere nearby, John. I'm sure. It's good he got away."

John nodded. He found he was thinking about Sherlock getting away. And of the really magnificent sight of a bodacious naked arse getting away at speed. It's jiggly. Succulent. It's—

"John."

John wondered if there was such a thing as naked jogging. If there was he and Sherlock should take it up. He'd be slightly slower than Sherlock. Just a little. As a matter of fact—

"John could you please stop."

The good doctor shook himself free of his daydream, looked down at the boner now forming a nice tartan bulge in his dress. He unhanded himself. "Sorry Greg. I'm drunk."

Greg thought back to his own distracted…rubbing. Was it just last night? "It's all right. Just, you know, maybe don't do that now?"

"Yeah. That's what got us into this trouble to begin with."

Greg did not add a comment. He'd been there, he knew how the trouble had started. He might have even said, "Uh, guys, you can't do that, we'll get in trouble."

But by that time Sherlock had gone partially deaf with lust, and John possibly half blind, and though it was the middle of the second act of _Der Rosenkavalier__,_ the boys of Baker Street had gone right ahead and done the thing Greg said not to do and indeed, trouble was had.

So, too, were John and Sherlock, but that is not the point I am making.

It wouldn't have been so bad really, if they'd just stayed within the confines of their box.

At first the lads had thought it unfair, eight of them in one opera box, John and Sherlock in their own, but the lure of free wine, cocktails, and hors d'oeuvres had gone far toward keeping the peace, so eight gowned man smoothed their silks, adjusted their opera gloves, and politely settled into one box, while just a bit up and to the right, two of their party groped their way to what would soon become their own little piece of heaven.

It started during the second act, when the tenor was taking a breath and the soprano was bating hers—the clear, unmistakable sound of a very deep baritone groan. It took but moments for everyone in that opera house to realise that sound sure as shit hadn't come from the stage.

That was when each gaze lifted heavenward and veered left. And there he was, a pale, dark-haired man, back and shoulders draped against the side of his box, arms spread as if crucified, head thrown back and pretty mouth wide to let out a series of frankly magnificent moans.

It wasn't until you blinked that you saw in the shadowy light that there was…there was…well there was a man standing deeper within the box, holding the dark-haired man's legs up and open, and that man was…he was…

_Oh._

It might have been about then that Lestrade took off, yelling to his friends something about trouble, though why he bothered he couldn't say. It wasn't as if Sherlock—who might want to think about a stage career because the man can certainly _project—_could hear anything.

And John, though quieter, was pumping into his fiancé with such fervour Greg was sure he could've thwacked the man with a truncheon and he would not have registered a thing. Not until—

"Ooooh!" moaned Sherlock, pitching his head back further so everyone below could clearly see the extent of his bliss. "Ooooooh _yes!"_

—_that._

"Oh god," said John, grinding away with great concentration, then suddenly catching his breath, going still, and sighing with such full-body relief that, hand-to-god, nearly everyone in that opera house suddenly felt post-coital.

Everyone except the front house manager.

Because the front house manager was angry. Absolutely pissed off. Finnemore Gates had already had a shitty day thank you for asking. He'd dealt with an egocentric millionaire, her two wildly incontinent dogs, and a just-sacked server dropping a tray of lemon-baked cod in the foyer, and god damn it he was in no _mood _for histrionic hanky-panky.

Which would explain why he arrived with police already in tow mere moments after Lestrade made it to the opera box of love.

A box which now contained only a sated ex-army doctor and, as of that second, _the wrong detective._

...

"I'm really sorry, you know."

Greg knew.

"I didn't mean to get you arrested."

Greg knew that, too.

"And I didn't mean for them to think you and I had…and were…you know…"

Greg knew.

"I tried to tell them."

Yes, that Greg knew most of all. He could still here John scoffing, "Are you kidding? _He's _not my fiancé!"

And now, sitting in a jail cell with his not!fiance, John murmured contritely, "I really didn't mean it the way it sounded."

Greg knew he was being a big, inebriated baby. He also knew he should just man up, put aside his slightly hurt feelings, and make John feel better. "I know, you were drunk. And surprised."

The good doctor nodded. "I'm still drunk. And I just haven't ever thought of you that way."

Greg wondered if _anyone_ thought of him that way.

"It's just…after two years with Mr. Crazy Pants, I can't even imagine being with anyone else."

Greg grinned. "Please tell me you don't call him—"

John giggled, pawed his bulge, "No I call him—"

The DI caught John's giggles and frantically waved both hands, "Don't tell me! I don't want to know!"

There were more giggles, then eventually both men mellowed into a companionable silence.

In it, Greg thought about whether he could get away with a dress in a nice dusky pink. Pink and grey (was he grey or silver?) were colours well-known to compliment one another, but the DI was pretty sure he didn't have the balls to pull it off.

John thought about Sherlock and getting married and how much he wanted to get married. He thought about how much he loved the love of his life and how unexpected that had been. Then John touched the veil on the prison bench beside him and to his surprise, it felt like someone had suddenly shoved a hot poker in his guts.

Like most of us, the good doctor had gone much of his life accepting convention. His father had served in the military; he would serve. Watsons stay in England; he'd traveled, but England was his home. He was a man; he would marry a woman.

For thirty-nine years these are the things he'd believed and accepted. And though not one part of him would change any of his present or his future, some small, strange part of him mourned for the easy certainty of his past.

Since humans have been marrying, humans have been nervous about getting married. It doesn't speak ill of the prospective spouse, it speaks of the human condition: Big commitments bring out big emotions. So as he held that veil in his hands, some nervous, human, tiny part of John Watson mourned for the 'normal' (not gay) life he'd never live, just as other prospective grooms and brides have mourned the 'carefree' single days they're about to surrender.

"Shit."

John looked up. "Hu?"

"Mate, you look like shit. And like you're about to throw up or cry or both."

John huffed out a noisy sigh. As unexpectedly as the strange mood struck, it was gone. John smiled. "This'd look good on Sherlock."

"Everything looks good on Sherlock."

John grinned, lofted the veil, as if to place it on a tall man's head. "Don't you hate him for that?"

Lestrade blinked and thought about it. "No, not really. I was very pretty once. It wasn't as useful as you'd think."

"Wait, you were—"

"Now, if you want to know what I hate him for, I could give you a list, but being pretty all the time and in everything isn't on it. Neither is being slender and tall with a voice that should be a misdemeanor if not an outright crime."

"Um…"

"No, what I'd put on my I Hate Sherlock Holmes list is the thing with the warrant cards. Do you know they've started charging me to replace them? I'm a well-respected detective inspector, and they're docking my pay to cover new warrant cards every other month. I don't even know why he still does it. It must be like a nervous tick or something."

"I know where—"

"I'd also put you on the list of reasons I hate Sherlock Holmes."

John closed his open mouth. He decided he wanted to hear this thing through.

"In case it's not obvious to you how obvious it is to us how much you obviously love him, let me be the first to tell you: It's _obvious. _You could be walking through a graveyard and it'd be obvious to the dead guy on whose grave you just trod how crazy you are about him."

Lestrade sighed and scratched his neck. "Yeah, if I was going to hate Sherlock Holmes for something, it'd be for having someone love him as much as you do. That doesn't happen often, you know? I guess most people aren't really worth it. I don't think he thinks he's worth it. S'sad."

Both men sat there thinking about that for a minute. Then John held out his hand. "Want to try on my veil."

Lestrade perked right on up. "Oh yeah, give over."

Despite what TV will tell you, men think about getting married. Some men, like women, are keen on keeping things low-key. Something at the registrar's office, a few witnesses, lunch after. Others are two thumbs up for a grand occasion, the church, limo, gown and garters, all of it.

John didn't at first realise that he was one of those.

The pomp and circumstance made his heart thrum faster. He groused about the fittings and the flitting from place to place, but he realised belatedly that it was the _hurry_ of it all that was irking him, not the minutiae of this butter cream or that one? Pearl grey tux or slate? An organ and procession or something brief and to the point?

John held out the veil. "Be gentle."

Lestrade frowned. He was drunk, he wasn't _careless._ "Of course," he said, gingerly plucking the frothy confection from John's hand.

And then there was the _passion._ They'd always had a rather eventful sex life but dear god—John crossed his legs, uncrossed them, recrossed them much, much harder—John was pretty certain his pants were on fire. He could barely keep his hands out of them. He could barely keep his hands out of _Sherlock's._

"The veil's much softer than I thought it'd be," John said around a burp.

Greg nodded. "Of course. Tulle isn't by nature scratchy unless you buy cheap." Obviously Greg had vastly more experience with the material, having already been married once.

"I was married once," he mumbled by way of explanation, his own burp echoing John's.

"Greg, are you gay?"

You know how when you're pregnant suddenly everyone's pregnant? About a week after starting to shag Sherlock, John suspected that just about every other person he knew was gay. He outright started asking, but he hadn't gotten around to Greg as the DI had been quite married, to a woman, at the time.

"Yeah."

They bonded over a simultaneous burp.

"You know Mycroft's single, right?"

Greg blushed right on up to his hairline and petted the veil in lieu of speaking.

"Anyway, try it on."

Greg blinked at the veil, and thought about the British government, completely forgetting where he was and what he was doing. Then John reached out to reclaim the confection and Lestrade focused fast.

Squinting hard in concentration, Greg slid the hair combs into his getting-long grey-silver mop and seated the froth and fuss around his shoulders.

The media rarely bother to tell you that men can look just as good in frilly things as women. But it's fine. It's all fine. Eventually some men learn it for themselves.

"Wow. That looks really good. Is it supposed to?"

Greg squinted again. "I don't know. It does feel nice."

"Would you get married again, do you think?"

"In a heartbeat."

John's brows did a surprised samba. "Why?"

"Because I love the declaration of it. The shouting-from-the-rooftops of it. Because I think it makes people try harder, dream bigger, it makes them a single unit of measure instead of separate variables."

Greg blinked rapidly at John. John blinked right back.

"Did I just channel Sherlock there for a minute?"

John shrugged.

"Your turn."

John frowned at the veil. Suddenly he sort of didn't want to touch it. It seemed to be making the entire cell sad.

He glanced around.

Well, it seemed to be making the only two people that were _in _the cell sad.

"Okay, give it here."

Gregory Lestrade did so.

John perched the thing on his head and instantly felt like a fool. Greg got up, managed to trip in the space of two feet, righted himself with a hand to John's shoulder and an elbow to his ear, said sorry five times, and then with a deep, steadying breath he adjusted the veil on John's head, fluffed the flounce, glanced side-long at his handy-work and then ran a quick hand under his nose.

"Don't cry."

Lestrade blinked glassy dark eyes at John.

"I'm not crying John. I'm…" Greg swayed woozily. "I'm…" He touched his left eye. "…crying. That's different."

John didn't like the weepy-sads everyone was getting. He started to remove the veil.

"Don't!"

He stopped.

"Why?"

Greg sat back down on his nice prison bench and began listing to starboard. "Because you look sweet."

John frowned. He's okay with the metrosexual, blurring of gender lines stuff, but sometimes he wonders if he and Sherlock are maybe heading the entire parade in this regard. But whatever. It was good. It was fine. Besides, he was too drunk to get the veil off anyway.

"Why does getting married make people sad?"

"I don't know. I guess it's happiness. And it's a milestone. They're always sad and good and weird. Like the end of the year. I think you think about all the things you thought you'd do before you got to this point and sometimes you've done them and sometimes you haven't and…and…" Greg gestured randomly. "…all I had at my bachelor party was greasy food and bad music. Gay bachelor parties are better, don't you think?"

John sobered long enough to tug the veil off his head without tearing the tulle. He handed the contraption back to Greg. "Where do you think everyone else is?"

Greg held the veil to his chest. "Still at the opera? Dead from alcohol poisoning?"

"I'm glad you're not dead Greg."

"Me too," Greg murmured, accidentally stabbing himself in the temple with a veil comb.

John was too busy watching Greg's manhandling of the veil to say anything else nice. "No, turn it—no, it goes on the—it—no—"

Exasperated, John stood, tugged the veil out of the DI's hand, muttered, "Holy shit, sit still you silly git," then reseated the gear on his friend's head.

After they both fussed with the frills awhile, draping the tulle just so across manly DI shoulders and around a scruffy-bearded face, John leaned over and kissed Greg's mouth. The tulle tickled.

For about ten second afterward they were super-cool-fine with this. Then they both realised that they were not engaged to each other.

"Um."

"Hey."

"Uh."

"Well."

And that's all they said about it.

At _that_ time.

And then it happened. The ambient temperature of the room seemed to drop ten degrees, putting pause to the awkward silence of both DI and doctor.

They looked at each other. They stood. They lifted their evening gowns a little to allow free movement toward the bars of their prison cell. Then together they whispered, "Mycroft's here."

_I've no idea if this is on the rails, off the rails, or has become an AU; I'm now simply holding the reins lightly and letting the story have its own head; we'll see where this goes together. Snogandagrope requested something to do with a kilt, so she got a tartan evening dress; a__lso, reader words used include opera gloves, but I'm sorry I lost who gave me that prompt. My thanks to Diane Duane who helped me understand a bit about opera when we both presumed I'd actually _write _about the opera. Thank you Diane, but you see what happened: Jail time. *Shakes head* You just never know, do you?_


	11. Chapter 11

As John and Greg entered Mycroft Holmes' well-appointed flat they were met with a wall of sound.

_"Joooohn!"_

Sherlock lunged down the ornate hall and fell upon his fiancé like a parched man upon the shore of a cool lake.

_"Mycroft wouldn't let me come!"_ he wailed at volume, every inch a six-year-old tattling on big brother. "I tried to come," he moaned, "but he said I'd make everything worse! But John!"

Sherlock unwound his limpet self from the good doctor's listing frame—champagne had been free-flowing in the back of Mycroft's chauffeured car—held his petite fiancé at arm's length, said in a very loud whisper, "That's where I went! That's why I left you at the opera! I had to get Mycroft! He knows people!"

Everyone knew Mycroft knew people. The entire reason John and Sherlock have been jailed as rarely as they have is because Mycroft knows a great number of quite great people.

Sherlock again tugged John hard against the sternum-deep plunge of his sexy velvet dress, said loudly, "I'm sorry you went to prison!"

For a long moment John enjoyed the warm, plush feel of Sherlock and his soft black gown. For a longer moment he watched in peripheral vision as every panting breath his fiancé took set the dress' silver filigree sparking.

For a moment longer than that John ran his hands slow along Sherlock's bare back, to velvet hips, then over the soft, sweet swell of his behind, until finally—

John Watson sucked in a scandalized breath, backed away, grabbed the wall and declaimed: "Sher. Lock. _Holmes._ Where the hell are your heels?"

Sher. Lock. Holmes looked down at his feet. They were bare but for a pair of sheer black stockings and a spanking-good pedicure. Blinking at the ground upon which his toes restlessly rested, Sher. Lock mourned loudly. "Oh Joooooohn. I don't know."

They'd been _gorgeous_ those heels. Sleek and tall and lush (kind of like Sherlock), they were velvet and black with lavish bows of grey tulle at the rear and sky-high silver spikes made of _actual_ silver. They'd made Sherlock so sylph-like and grand John had got on his back, legs spread, seconds after Sherlock first slipped them on.

But that was neither here nor there. Just like the _shoes_ were neither here nor there.

"Those shoes cost me a million American dollars, Sherlock, then another million in express shipping, and you don't know where they are?"

Sherlock continued to stare at those sentient things wiggling away down there and he blink-stared his way through the early part of the evening attempting to remember what had become of his amazing heels of sex (if you want to think fondly of a pair of shoes, have your second orgasm of the evening watching your fiancé have his first _on your shoes)._

Anyway, visualising John coming on crushed velvet cleared Sherlock's mind. "The shoes are on the corpse!"

John shifted so he could hold up a different section of wall and jutted his chin to give a more convincing portrait of a man very put out. "Why are your American shoes on a dead person?"

Sher. Lock. thought about that and he thought about it hard. Within a few moments he realised thinking hard was making him hard. Since he was, you know, _Sherlock _he tried shoving his hand down his trousers only to discover he was wearing a dress. After a moment of confusion he realised the dress was very thin, very tight, and he'd long since lost his panties.

_Excellent._

Sherlock started rubbing at his hard-on with the heel of his hand and answered his fiancé's question.

"Because her feet were cold."

John sighed and, instead of asking where the corpse was, why _Sherlock_ had been where the corpse was, or remarking that cadavers did not generally notice a chill, John said, "She must be some sort of Valkyrie if your shoes fit her."

Sherlock took a quick breath, rubbed himself harder—to the wide-eyed interest of the eight other people slowly congregating in that broad hall—because he loves it when John deduces pretty much anything at all, however obvious.

"That's why I put my shoes on her feet!" he yelled, wanking (is it wanking if you're not _gripping?)_ harder and adding, "But I remember where she is now! I'll go back for the shoes! They're very pretty shoes!"

They sure as hell were, but frankly they didn't hold a candle to what Sherlock was still trying to take hold of through his slinky dress.

Finally John realised that they were not entirely alone, that watching Sherlock manhandle himself was causing his own noticeable swelling, and so John stopped holding up the wall, stumble-slid along to another section closer to Sherlock, grabbed his fiancé's wrist and said in a loud whisper—and as if he himself hadn't just been released from jail for public indecency, "Stop doing that in front of everyone, it's _rude."_

Because Sherlock is sometimes really quite obedient he obediently stopped trying to get off in front of his friends. Instead he started lifting up John's dress.

Forgetting that they weren't entirely alone, John sighed in happy inebriation and let his sweet little tartan number get tugged nearly up to his bare bum before he remembered that they were not entirely alone. It was then he took hold of Sherlock's other wrist and said to the room in general, "If you'll excuse us, we are going to powder our noises." The good doctor shook his head. "Noses. Our _noses."_

John then turned, intending on finding a private place to rock Sherlock's world, but before getting his barefoot love more than half a dozen feet Mycroft appeared.

*Gentlemen, thank you for your patience. I believe we're ready for the gifts now."

...

Herding seven drunk police officers, two drunk doctors, and an over-excited consulting detective into a sitting room nearly as big as Battersea isn't as difficult as one might suppose.

There's a reason for this, and it's called party favours.

Because here's something Mycroft Holmes can tell you for a fact: Whether meeting with police officers or potentates, wrap pretty shiny things in handsome boxes and you can control any gathering in a trice.

In this instance eight pretty men each held a handsome box containing an impossibly thin iPhone Ice, a device not on the market for another eighteen months. While each man was in a high state of excitement, a doctor and a detective were squealing like children as they unwrapped their joint favour: Sherlock's expensive American shoes.

"Mycroft, you _found _them."

Indeed Mycroft had, for that is what Mycrofts do: They find things. Loopholes, common ground, the "lost" ballot box. It is also in Mycroft's purview to arrange things, to make the impossible possible.

But for his little brother, and only for his little brother, Mycroft does one thing more. He follows behind and he picks up after.

Oh to be sure he may complain about doing it, he may say he's had it up to the preverbal here doing it, and he may threaten he's emphatically done doing it, no, seriously, I mean it this time you know, but Mycroft's been following behind Sherlock since the precocious child first cried havoc, and the elder Holmes is not about to stop now.

Which is by way of clarifying how Mycroft came in possession of Sherlock's pretty shoes, while tangentially accounting for his absence from the earlier portion of the bachelor party.

Basically, Mycroft has spent a large portion of this week following behind his sibling, and his sibling's future spouse, tidying up the pheromone-filled messes they've left along the way. Texts from the last few days include, but are not limited to:

_* She promises she won't press charges if three cakes are purchased. Please pick three cakes Sherlock._

_* You're probably right, but I took the precaution of procuring a lovely summer cruise for the vicar and her partner, anyway._

_* No, a corpse can not attend a wedding; where _are_ you?_

_* Sherlock?_

_* STAY THERE I'M ON MY WAY._

By this simple measure Mycroft has helped his brother and his brother's fiancé make it through these few demanding days without acquiring either tattoos, scars, or prison records.

(And no, there is no record of a Dr. John Watson or a Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade having been taken into custody for indecent exposure. Quite the contrary, tomorrow morning a lovely piece will publish in the society pages, showing Messrs. Holmes and Watson enjoying a black-tie evening at the opera, then late-night aperitifs with their intimates at Bistro Avec. The article will include photographic proof that Gregory Lestrade was at this refined fête, hair urbanely slicked back, a sexy glint in his sober eyes.)

But Mycroft's ability to hire actors who look unnervingly similar to the people they're impersonating isn't the point. The _point_ is that Mycroft had once more picked up after his little brother, first by locating the shoeless man and the shoe-shod corpse in St. Mary's morgue, then by going on to rescue John Watson and Gregory Lestrade from jail, and finally by arranging, in his serene and spacious Mayfair flat, an after-party for a party of high-compromised men.

"Detective inspector Lestrade—"

The gin-compromised man with that name stopped squinting at his shiny new phone and looked up. The moment his eyes lit upon the British government he beamed in drunken serenity. "Yes, Mr. Holmes?"

Mr. Holmes entirely forgot what he was saying.

Then a pantsless Sherlock started hiking up his dress in an effort to get heels on his heel-less feet and Mycroft focused fast. "Would you kindly take charge of the gift giving?"

DI Lestrade beamed more brightly, took a sip of his drink, and said in the most seductive voice he could muster, "Certainly Mr. Holmes."

...

"It's a dick on a stick!"

Velvet, silk, lace—to a man the bachelor party attendees were dressed with care and refinement. Ten wore lovely dresses, one a bespoke suit, all felt cultured. For some of them that was not necessarily the same as _being_ cultured.

Stephen-or-Robert adjusted his tiara and elucidated. "It's solid milk chocolate!"

John nodded at the first gift of the evening. He was not sure what he expected, but the whole fancy-dress-opera-Mayfair vibe had apparently left him with expectations of class. A solid milk chocolate dick-on-a-stick had put paid to that.

John looked at Greg. Greg looked as if he felt guilty for having handed the gift to John. Sherlock reached over and took the chocolate penis from his sweetheart. He then asked, "What's next," and shoved the life-sized dick in his mouth.

John briefly forgot his own name.

"Uh…"

Only once Sherlock bit the head off the candy phallus was the good doctor able to focus on the next item. As this one matched the previous one in terms of wrapping paper, John was pretty sure he knew what was, uh, coming.

"They're jelly willies!" trilled Stephen-or-Robert.

Holding them at arm's length John could see that yes, yes indeed they were. _Fruit_ flavoured.

John looked at Lestrade again. Lestrade at John. Then John nodded his pained thanks to S-or-R and handed the box of jellies to Sherlock, who proceeded to consume them.

The dick and the willies were followed by a brace of candy posing pouches, a pound of bum-shaped boiled sweets, a tin of peppermint 'peckers,' and enough candy cock rings to keep a regiment erect. Stephen-or-Robert had considerately provided such an abundance of everything that the sweets would last them through a party _and _an apocalypse, and even though John shared the abundance liberally, there was still so much left that Sherlock's cheeks actually bulged.

Things did not quickly improve.

John opened the next gift.

"Oh my. Rashid. How lovely. Fur-lined handcuffs."

The detective constable grinned happily, "Faux fur! So you don't have to feel guilty using them!"

John toyed with telling the nice young man that they wouldn't be using them at all, that they had long since given up trying anything bondage-related, that they had narrowed themselves down to every _other _possible perversion, but while he contemplated how to say this in a classy way he opened the accompanying gift and—

"A riding crop!"

—Sherlock shouted at giddy volume.

And indeed, in John's hand was a riding crop. A _red_ riding crop (ha ha) with a big fat heart at the business end. It was almost as appalling as the purple-fur-lined cuffs, but only almost. John was about to place it beside those cuffs, hoping against hope that the entire lot would soon be lost in the vastness of Battersea North, when Sherlock finished shoving a quarter pound of peppermint peckers in his maw then opened both hands in a _gimme-gimme_ gesture.

John passed the riding crop to his fiancé and smiled his thanks to Rashid so broadly his jaw ached. Sherlock placed the crop across his lap and began munching contentedly on the bum-shaped boiled sweets.

It was at this juncture that John decided he needed the fortification of a glass of champagne. This decision decided him on his next decision which was to drink more champagne. John continued in this manner until he had consumed three glasses in quick succession.

Now completely sanguine about everything—including the fact that Sherlock had put away more than a half kilo of sugar in the last ten minutes—John opened the next gift.

It had hair. And flare. And… "It's a butt plug?" John held the pretty glass thing up. Sherlock, rat-arsed on pheromones and sugar, leaned in close, blinked in surprise.

"But John and I do a perfectly good job of plugging each othe—"

"Sherlock."

"A perfectly good job of plu—"

"Sherlock."

"A perfectly good—"

"Sherlock!"

_"What?"_

So help him John forgot what he was about to shout. Then he remembered. "Shut up!"

Then, forgetting he was not holding a champagne glass John tried drinking the butt plug.

"John."

"Sherlock, I'm warning you—"

"John."

"If you say what I—"

"John."

"I'm not joking, I—"

"John!"

_"What?"_

"Stop trying to drink the butt plug."

John had the thing well past his lips before he realised what he was doing. He then blushed clear to his collar bones, put the plug down, took Mike's champagne glass right out of Mike's hand, and begin drinking from it as if no one saw him do just exactly these things.

"I'm not."

It was then that Mycroft showed a great kindness. He announced cake.

As one the men rose and as one they made their way to Mycroft's spacious dining area. Catching his future brother-in-law's eye on the way, John pleaded _please make them disappear please please please._

Then, for the next two hours, eleven men enjoyed quiet conversation, coffee, and a very lovely bourbon butter cream. By all accounts it was marvelous.

I miss cake.

...

"Strawberry?"

"Yes."

"Strawberry?"

"Yes again."

"Straaaawberry."

"If you don't have one I have one."

Rashid raised a hand toward the detective inspector. He did not want to be hurried. He also did not want to be sober but apparently everyone had switched to coffee. He wouldn't say anything but it was probably because they were old. Old people didn't have his tolerance for alcohol. Heck, he could drink—

"If you don't have one I really, really have one."

—a _lot._ As a matter of fact, if he thought about it, he could very happily drink a _strawberry _daiquiri about now. Yes, that would be delightful. He wondered if he could ask for one. He probably shouldn't. It was two in the morning. It was probably time to stop drinking. Still, he might ask. After all, the night was young and so was he. He could…

"Rashid?"

He…

"Rash—"

…could…

_"Sssshhhhh."_

For a few seconds they all listened to soft snoring. Then Lestrade whispered, "Okay, since Rashid's passed out with an elbow in his frosting, I'm going to do the strawberry one."

The rest of the 'old people' nodded in quiet agreement.

"All right. Well, I once saw John eat every last seed off the outside of a strawberry. I'm talking about those weenie little seeds on the skin. And though I'll tell you that a nude strawberry's an extremely wrong-looking thing, I'm still in awe of the oral skill a man must have to do that."

Greg wondered belatedly if he should be embarrassed for praising John's oral skills, then, when Mycroft passed him the dictionary, wondered if he should be embarrassed that Mycroft had heard him praise John's oral skills. Lestrade opened the dictionary randomly so that he'd stop wondering.

"Petrichor." Leaning away from the tiny type under his finger, the detective inspector squinted. "The pleasant smell accompanying rain after a long dry spell."

A butler refilled two coffee cups. Someone took another slice of cake. And Greg said, "Okay, well I have one for that one, too in case no one else does."

Greg politely waited, then plowed on. "So one time we needed to get a little kid to tell us where her dad's 'other house' was. This other house being the pass-through point for a meth ring. Well she was a wary kid, and no wonder, growing up around the things she did. So Sherlock said to her, 'If I make it rain right now, would you whisper it to me?'"

Greg gestured at Mike, who'd paused wide-eyed, fork halfway to his mouth. "Yeah, that's kind of what she did. And the rest of us, too. And so we all stand there dead quiet and finally the kid says, 'Okay,' and so Sherlock turns to the window, lifts his arm, and says to the sky, 'She said "okay."' And it started to rain. Right then, just like that."

Because Sherlock was maybe working off his sugar high by doing laps around the kitchen everyone—except Rashid—looked at John. Mike positively _beamed._

"He'd noticed the incipient darkness, freshening wind, ambient temperature, and gathering clouds," John explained. "That's what he told me later."

"So Sherlock deduced the sky."

The good doctor grinned. "Yeah, Sherlock deduced the sky. I've seen him deduce a chicken and an octopus, too."

"Wow," said Stephen-or-Robert. "John, you are so lucky."

_Stop, stop, stop there, right there._

I knew it when my little soldier told me later, and John knew it when Robert (his friends call him Bobby) said it then. _That _was why I wanted Sherlock to have an engagement party. For him to see that he's seen. Seen as worthy. Seen as worth having.

John nodded at every single man sitting around that pretty teak table. "Yes," he said, "I really am."

He would have said more, the future Mr. John Watson-Holmes, but just about then Haddad got possession of the dictionary and, many suspected, selected his word not at all randomly.

"Erect."

Fine china cups snicked gently against delicate china saucers, hands folded neatly into laps, and not one man there offered to speak for the word _erect._

And then one man did.

"You haven't done one yet, John."

John picked up an empty coffee cup and hugged it to his chest. "I think I'm still a little drunk, because I don't actually understand this game at all. This is a very confusing game."

Mycroft tried to refill his future brother-in-law's cup, was rebuffed. "It's quite simple, John. A word is randomly chosen from the dictionary. Then anyone who has a story inspired by that word shares with us something of interest about either groom."

"The more ribald the better!"

The good doctor couldn't tell if the shouter was Haddad or that butler guy who kept floating in and out of the room mysteriously.

To cope with his confusion John tried drinking from his empty cup. It was still empty. "This isn't like any other bachelor party I've ever been to."

"What were the other parties like?"

John twisted around in his chair. Framed in the dining room doorway was Sherlock.

And suddenly John went mushy round his edges. Because standing there quiet and still Sherlock looked…angelic. He looked sacred and holy and tall and sinuous. He looked beautiful and innocent and velvety and John didn't want to tell him what some bachelor parties were like because there was nothing sacred about vomit or pretending as if marriage were a prison sentence instead of a promise.

"Dumber. Some of them were much dumber." John held out his hand. "How long have you been there?"

Sherlock glanced at Robert. "Long enough." Then he reached back, went to his knees beside John's chair, pushed a lock of hair from his fiancé's eyes.

"Erect. That was John's back, the first time I saw him. The tallest man in the room."

There are so many things Sherlock says he doesn't do. Snore. Watch television. _Exaggerate._

"You perfect little liar," John whispered, leaning forward to softly kiss.

About the time everyone else was going mushy round their edges, Mycroft said, "Cheiloproclitic."

Many gazes turned to the elder Holmes, who made a moue. "An honestly chosen word, I assure you. It means—"

"I know what it means," John said, finally relinquishing the coffee cup so he could brush both thumbs over Sherlock's mouth. "I was maybe a bit cheiloproclitic once, but that passed. Now I'm attracted to everything, all of him. His beautiful eyes, his fine nose, his cheeks, his hands, his height. My towering fairy tale prince."

Three men, including the butler, were about to suggest that perhaps the party had reached its natural conclusion, when John went ahead and softly dropped a little bomb.

"I accidentally kissed Greg."

It wasn't the collective indrawing of breath that woke Rashid, it was Lestrade nearly choking to death on his own spit.

After Haddad's offer of the Heimlich was declined and everyone was certain Lestrade would live, Sherlock danced fingers across John's brow, brushing the fringe back into his eyes. Somehow it made them look so much bigger.

"I know."

And then there was more kissing.

...

It wasn't until later, after everyone went home, after my boys were in bed, long after they fell upon each other like ravening beasts, that John whispered, "Wait a minute."

A tiny snort-snore signified that Sherlock was now awake.

"What do you mean, 'I know'?"

It's the silences that are suspicious, always the silences. You think Sherlock would have learned by now that a tart retort is almost all he needs to put John off the scent, but no.

So for awhile the silence went unbroken as one extremely bright brain ran through several dozen scenarios. Eventually that bright brain went with the basics. "Do you want me to lie or tell the truth?"

John thought about this for exactly no seconds. "Truth. Always."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Always?"

"Yes."

"Even if it'll make you angry?"

"Yes."

"Even if you told me not to do the thing I'm going to tell you I did and you'll be even more angry?"

"Yes."

"Even if—"

"Just spit it out Sherlock."

"I got Mycroft to get me access to the video feed while you and Greg were in jail."

After the build-up John was expecting something new. Something unnerving.

"You spied on Greg and me in our prison cell?"

"Yes."

"With your brother's help."

"Yes."

"And saw everything."

"Yes."

"So you saw the kind-of crying?"

"Yes."

"And the veil?"

"Yes."

"Okay then."

"You're not angry?"

"You saw me kiss your friend and watched me kind of masturbate in front of him. If you're not, I'm not."

Silence.

"Are you?"

"No."

Silence.

"Are you lying?"

"No."

"Good."

Pause.

"It really was an accident."

"I know."

"When I leaned close to put the veil on him my body carried through with what it's used to doing when I get that close to a man."

Shifting in the dark. Warm breath against John's cheek. There was a man…very close.

Sherlock placed a warm hand on a warm cheek, kissed his sweetheart a long, slow while. "I liked part of it."

"Which part."

Silence.

"Which part?"

Silence.

"I know which part."

Silence.

"I'm not going to do that again."

More silence.

"Not unless you get me _very_ drunk."

Lip-biting silence.

"Which, depending, I may not be adverse to."

A smile in the dark.

"You know this isn't normal, right?"

Loud, derisive thoughts along the lines of _since when have we ever cared about 'normal.'_

"But if you want to watch me masturbate in public, who am I to argue?"

And that was all said about that.

At _that_ time.

_The chapter wandered and I know it wandered and I needed to let it wander so I could tie up a few issues. The story will return to its previous madness, with the conclusion within sighting distance. I think. That's what Rory tells me, but you know how she veers. (Oh, and reader words used include strawberry, petrichor, cheiloproclitic, and party favours. Thank you Greencarnations, Nyxe, Corvusredcrow, Rosemcphee. Also thank you Artemis Fortune for "my towering fairy tale prince.")_


	12. Chapter 12

**2:31 am**

Before John and Sherlock's little tête-à-tête in bed, but soon after John's Greg-kissing confession, each and every bachelor party guest was safely tucked into his own chauffeur-driven car.

Nearly every last man passed out on his journey home and was difficult to wake at his destination. Each driver managed this issue in her or his own way.

**2:32 am**

As soon as they settled into the back of their limousine, Sherlock tugged his slinky velvet gown right on up to his nipples.

He did this to display a perfectly stunning erection, and if he could have warbled, fanned out tail feathers, and puffed up a colourful chest frill to entice John, he'd have done that, too.

Fortunately, his sweetheart's completely vertical cock was all the mating display John required. As heedless of their driver as his over-aroused future husband, John pulled up his own lovely frock, spit-slicked his sweetie well and good, straddled him in the car's capacious back seat, and started to ride.

**2:35 am**

Perfectly aware his call would not be answered and why, Mycroft Holmes rang his brother's mobile. He left a short, detailed message.

He then thanked his butler, sent him home, discarded a frankly stunning array of penis-shaped sweets, and took a whiskey with him to bed.

**2:47 am**

Haddad was one of the few that did not sleep during his journey home.

As such he got into a meandering conversation with his driver, where they discovered they both like sand art in general and building life-sized items in particular.

Two years and three months from this exact evening Patti will propose to Haddad on the Thames' south shore, getting on her knee in front of a life-sized sand sofa, sand candles, and sand flowers, as well as a really jolly crowd of twenty-eight tourists.

Haddad will say yes.

**2:55 am**

To the soothing hum of tyres moving over a morning-damp road, his future husband's cock still well up his arse, John dozed peacefully against Sherlock chest.

A few minutes later the good detective shouted them both quite alert when he suddenly realised they were being kidnapped.

**7:00 am**

Mycroft Holmes woke from a restful three and one half hours of sleep.

The first thing he did upon opening his eyes was sigh in long-suffering. The sun was blazing warm through leaded glass, the flat was sweetly silent…and he was stiff as an unfurled umbrella.

Then Mycroft sighed again, suddenly remembering he no longer hated masturbating.

In the past, laying hands on himself never seemed to get at the _itch_ of the thing. Usually he was left just as distracted after as before, only the _after _came with stickiness and a vague, gnawing sense that it would always be this way: Half-relief, half-frustration, half, half, half.

That changed once he had a very particular face in mind. Two particular dark eyes. A mad scruff of silver hair. A fine mouth that quirked in an almost-smile, broad shoulders…big hands that…that…

_"Ooh."_

**9:20 am**

John opened his eyes to warm morning light and contemplated being annoyed with Mycroft for kidnapping them. John decided to magnanimously forego this pleasure for two reasons.

First, he remembered Mycroft's phone message, the one they'd both listened to at three a.m., as the limousine abducted, uh, chauffeured them from the bachelor party to their destination an hour north-west of London.

_Hello gentlemen. I'm calling on behalf of Mrs. Hudson and myself. It seems we've decided we will quite possibly kill you separately and then together if we don't have you out from under foot. As such you're now being ushered to the winery at which you'll be married. Please do relax there for the next couple days. I understand the shiraz is lovely, as is the ratatouille. Let us know if you need anything. And for heaven's sake Sherlock, kindly put some panties_ _on._

The second reason John decided to generously forego the pleasure of being annoyed with his future brother-in-law was because he was reclining on a perfectly lovely king-sized bed, in a tiny cottage nestled snug behind the winery at which he would the next day be married, and Sherlock had just spread him, finger-fucked him full of lube, and was now beginning to pump away.

So yes, John really had other pleasures to which to attend at this time.

**10:35 am**

Elizabeth Hudson understands passion.

It was a passion for possibilities that brought her to London in her early twenties. Arm-in-arm with her endlessly-chatty best friend she'd taken the tube from one end of London to the other that first year, and still knows of far-flung spots of which even Sherlock is ignorant.

It had been the passion of her husband, a not-very-big man who took great pride in standing up for her, in being her voice when she hadn't yet come into her own, that had caused Lizzie to link her life to his in a spur-of-the-moment promise of life-long fidelity.

And it had been Sherlock's passion for understanding the tick-whir of _life_ that had unstoppered her tongue at last, confessing to him what for twenty-three years she hadn't shared with nurses, police officers, anyone at all. But the so-rare passion in Sherlock's eyes, the fire she saw in his cloud gaze…it changed so many things for both of them.

"Must make the rest of those calls," my dear girl murmured, petting my head.

But instead of making calls, Elizabeth stood at the mantle of 221B, having picked the lock not twenty minutes previous—"Sherlock taught me; sometimes I just like to keep my skills sharp"—and murmured, "Life's a funny old thing, isn't it?"

I agreed that it was.

"You plan and you wish, but sometimes everything goes tits up and it isn't until years pass that you understand that that was how it had to be."

Elizabeth Hudson understands passion.

She understands that sometimes it causes a man to becomes bitter, then angry, then vicious. And sometimes what you thought was the end of everything is only a pause, a suspended time of suffering and growth…and the birth of new passions.

Lizzie looked out the dusty windows of the first floor flat she's been renting to two fine men for about two years. A flat in a building she's already willed to those men, along with another she owns because long ago a mostly-good man went bad, but the funny thing about a life that's gone tits up is that it doesn't stay that way, it gets better, if you stick it out, if you keep breathing, if you believe.

"Yes, my dear, life's a funny old thing."

**11:53 am**

Mike Stamford is one of the gentlemen who fell asleep in the chauffeur-driven car not twenty seconds after he entered it.

Once arriving at her destination, the driver had resorted to playing speed metal over the sound system before the good doctor finally roused, and really he only shifted then because his wife heard the noise—after the driver had opened the windows—and came out to fetch him.

His wife's hysterical laughter at his tiara (a parting gift from Lestrade) helped keep Mike conscious until they got indoors, and it was her appreciation of his gown that kept them both conscious for almost an hour after.

Be that as it may, Stamford woke at just shy of noon the day after the bachelor party, rolled over in an empty bed, and saw a note propped against his sparkly head gear. _Took Rowan to tennis. You look good in green, baby. Am borrowing the dress for tomorrow._

Beside the note was a plate of toast and tea—both cold, exactly how he liked them. It was then Mike realised it was the weekend and he had absolutely nothing on.

Bliss.

He and Rowena have had their difficulties over the years, but there was something a bit wonderful about the calmness of their lives now. They'd always wanted the same steady things, they'd finally went ahead and got them, and they did what they needed to do to keep them. Mike could see the road ahead and it was much the same as the one behind and this filled him with peace, a peace he found himself wishing for his soon-to-be-married friends.

Oh, Mike knew John and Sherlock's version of a good life was not his, that some people require the invigoration of a few trials along with their tranquility, but just the same, Mike Stamford wished for them a good life, a steady life. He wished for them peace.

Plucking up his perfect toast Mike crunched crumbs into his bed and wondered what those two were up to now.

**11:57 am**

While he dreamed of rimming his fiancé in Buckingham Palace, John groaned, shifted, and kneed the love of his life in the head.

Sherlock woke with a start and entirely confused.

In quick succession he 1) remembered where they were, 2) remembered he'd flipped around after coming a few hours back and started to suck John off and 3) that's why he was staring at his fiancé's naked thighs and had cold come on his cheek.

When one of those thighs, and its attached knee, started coming in for another jab, Sherlock prevented this by encouraging a different jab entirely. He opened his mouth and John's cock slid right in.

Sherlock began to suck.

**2:34 pm**

Greg Lestrade was going to arrest the next person who said, "So how was it? Did you really get arrested?"

Because despite the society pages—he hadn't known there _were_ still society pages—showing him dapper and sober at some fussy bistro on the Strand, Lestrade's crew knew something had happened. They just didn't know what and he was tired of telling them there was nothing to tell.

He was also tired of wondering why he didn't have a hangover despite having drunk enough to take down three eighteen-year-olds and his own grandmother. He kept thinking maybe Mycroft had special non-hangover gin, expensive stuff only people like Mycroft could get and then only through secret Moroccan couriers or something.

Then Greg kept thinking maybe he should call Mycroft and ask him about the special gin. Then he kept thinking, "Well yes, call him right on up and ask him if he hires secret agents to ferry liquor across the Strait of Gibraltar so an almost-50-year-old lush can get clattered but wake up fresh as a unshaved daisy." And then, just as he'd get to this point in his little internal monologue, another constable would poke their head into his office and ask, "Hey, is it really true that…"

Be that as it may, his shift ended in a little over two hours. In the meantime he continued to sit grimly at his desk, today's _Guardian_ opened to the society news, and every time someone asked about last night he'd stab a finger at the photo that showed John and Sherlock in a fancy bistro and smiling grandly for the camera, the same photo that showed him in the near background, dapper and debonair and apparently in deep conversation with a hawk-nosed man with ginger hair and perfectly lovely freckles.

**5:15 pm**

"—and if you ever do that again I'll kill you."

Under an absurdly awesome shower—one part waterfall, two parts gentle rain, three parts masseuse—Sherlock meticulously scrubbed John's back. He did not do this because his fiancé was particularly soiled, but because it kept the good doctor faced away from him while the small man ranted about the thing that happened _after _they got to the winery last night, after their little chat, and before they passed out.

And what happened before they conked out on top of a duvet as plush and soft as Sherlock's behind, was that Sherlock tried to kill John. That went something like this:

"Stop it!"

Sherlock did not stop it. Instead he'd advanced on John, brows lowered pugnaciously. As there was a lot of brow there to work with, his scowl was impressive.

"I'm not impressed and you'd just better _stop it!"_

Again Sherlock hadn't stopped, merely feinted left, then outmaneuvered John on the right.

"Let go now or so help me I'll—"

It was at this point John was silenced because Sherlock started killing him.

"Ggggttthhhhh!"

Which is to say that John's future husband had force-fed him water in an effort to ensure that John would not wake up dead.

At the time Sherlock's reward for this anti-hangover largesse was a bruise on his collar bone the size of a plum, getting drenched from neck to navel, and livid bite marks on his arse from—

No wait, that was before the thing with the water and completely consensual.

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that Sherlock's learned many things from John in their two years together. He makes use of almost none of it because he's a lazy git, but Sherlock has got wise to at least one thing: He now understands the appropriate uses of domestic silence.

And diversion.

So, while John continued to tell him how many pieces into which he would be disassembled should he ever again propel fluids down John's unwilling throat, Sherlock continued to remain mute, rubbed big hands up high along John's back…and then went low with teeth and tongue.

Within five and a half seconds John forgot what he was saying, pressed both palms up on the glass-tiled wall, and spread his legs.

**8:02 pm**

Mycroft hung up the phone.

He released a deep and satisfied breath and smiled, showing teeth.

To the degree that he and Mrs. Hudson could make things flawless, they had done so. Every T had been crossed, each I dotted and all that was left was the short wait between now and when his car came to fetch him at 8:00 am tomorrow morning.

Until then Mycroft was actually free as a bird. Unencumbered. He could do absolutely anything he wanted to do. And what he realised he really wanted to do was thank John Watson.

And so, spiritually speaking, he raised a glass in the air and he did.

Mycroft thanked John for wanting Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft thanked John for wanting _all _of him.

Certainly many have wanted Sherlock through the years. Some have craved that big, fine brain of his, and been willing to pay quite handsomely for the use of it. Others have desired that lithe and pretty body, and have offered to pay for that, too. But until John, no one had wanted what came with both of these things—that fiery mouth.

And so no one ever got past the wanting, and no one ever did learn that that mouth, that brain, that body, that the man? All of his genius, all of his beauty, all of his heart didn't have to be bought, it would be willingly given…for love.

Mycroft hadn't even known that that was possible. Which was why the elder Holmes raised his hand in a second toast, this one to thank his little brother. Because Sherlock had shown Mycroft something breathtaking: He'd shown him that a man can change.

They're rare, the Holmes boys, and for as long as they can remember the world has treated them accordingly. That treatment's rarely been kind, and nothing canalizes behaviour quite like adversity. So as a response to cruelty Mycroft and Sherlock had long ago learned to be cruel, they learned to be cold, they learned the disadvantages of caring.

And then Mycroft's brother, a man who sometimes took even his extremes to extremes, well, he met a man.

A mostly-quiet, unassuming man. A man who didn't ask Sherlock to change, and yet in the wanting of this man, in the desire to keep him near, Sherlock had done just that.

Just a little really. But just enough.

And so Mycroft learned that that was possible. Even for them.

A man could change.

_He _could change.

He _would_ change.

Mycroft put down his glass and for the last time that night, he picked up the phone.

**8:15 pm**

"You have to suck harder, John."

John Watson once had a bomb land so close to the mobile army hospital in which he was patching a man that he felt the heat of the desert _pushed aside_ by the heat of the bomb. He kept on patching.

John once flawlessly worked four consecutive shifts—two off the clock—in the first year of his residency.

John has lied directly to Mrs. Hudson's face in order to save Sherlock's arse.

The point I'm making is that John's made of stern stuff and steady, but trying to eat oysters while Sherlock strokes him under a restaurant table and says things like—

"Lick it out, John."

—as he laps juices from a half shell is probably going to kill him.

**8:45 pm**

Rashid told Haddad that if he paused the movie one more time in order to get another cola, so that he could then get himself even _more _wound up about that woman, and so _continue _to talk through the movie, which Rashid reminded Haddad he _has not seen,_ then Rashid would put a worm in one of Haddad's crazy-arse salads, so help him god.

Haddad started the movie from the beginning and shut up about _that woman_ for the next two hours. Mostly.

**9:04 pm**

Gregory Lestrade hung up the phone.

Tomorrow he was going to a wedding with Mycroft Holmes. Tomorrow he'd sit in a plush chauffeured car for an entire hour with Mycroft Holmes.

Giddy, nervous, and suddenly desperately in need of diversion, Greg decided he'd start getting ready. Fourteen hours early.

**11:32 pm**

Sherlock kissed John in front of the bartender.

John pinched Sherlock's arse as they passed the maître d'.

Sherlock dragged John into the dark beside the restaurant.

John shoved his hands down Sherlock's trousers once they got there.

Sherlock came with a groan after five rubs and three dirty sweet nothings.

John came up Sherlock's bum four minutes later.

Both of them passed out on top of the fluffy-soft duvet the second they got their kit off.

**11:48 pm**

Angelo Ferlinghetti turned off the restaurant's lights, glanced at his watch, and grinned.

In a little over twelve hours all his hard work would at last pay off and he could finally relax.

Because do not doubt that Angelo had a hand in getting John and Sherlock together. As far as Angelo's concerned he helped start things off that very first night.

"A candle for the table," he'd murmured, "More romantic."

It's true what they say: You can't kill an idea. So right at the start Angelo went ahead and he planted an idea, a wonderful idea, he knows that he did.

And who's to say he's wrong?

**5:22 am**

Sherlock opened his eyes.

It was six hours and twenty three minutes before his own wedding and he was not ready to get married.

Sherlock was not ready to be the other half of a couple.

Sherlock was not ready to get married and be the _worse_ half of a couple.

What I'm trying to say is that Sherlock was not ready, not at all ready, would never be ready, to let John down.

When John first proposed to him two weeks ago Sherlock had said no. Because Sherlock's not a genius for nothing, Sherlock _knows_ things.

He knows that tongue prints are as unique as finger prints. That one way to learn the age of a corpse is to count its bones. He knows you can tell the handedness of a dead body by the length of its fingernails. And Sherlock knows that John Watson's very much going to regret marrying him.

Because, despite not wanting to, Sherlock knows he'll disappoint John. Hell, he already does, nearly every day. He forgets things he's supposed to remember, sets fire to things that should not burn, and he loves crime and the dark and puzzles more than he loves the telly or walks in the park or anything that isn't crime and the dark and puzzles.

Sherlock knows things, so many things, but one thing he doesn't know is how to be good, how to be _actually _good. Oh he understands fake it 'til you make it, he can simulate just about anything, including virtue, but that's not at all the same as being virtuous.

For two years John's run with Sherlock. Together they've been dashing around the dark, in some ways acting like children, doing things grown-ups don't really do. So what happens if something happens? Either of them could be hurt at any time, hurt so gravely that all of it stops. The running, the clues, the extended adolescence.

And if that happens, _what happens?_

Sherlock will tell you. John finally sees what's always been right in front of him: Sherlock isn't good and he's not great. He's just an unsocial man with a funny brain and he doesn't know how to love someone without setting fire to his jumpers, without forgetting his birthday, without being a dozen things that great men _are not._

John's always deserved better, but Sherlock's not that selfless, and so that's not why he got out of their lovely bed in that wee and lovely cottage. He got out of the bed because he couldn't stand the idea that one day John will look at him and John will think, _Fuck. He was right. Sherlock was right._

Because Sherlock _is_ always right. Especially right about how _wrong_ he is.

So Sherlock stood beside the bed and he watched John breathing and while he did that he carefully counted his own heartbeats and when he got to two hundred and twenty one—sheer sentiment, that—Sherlock turned and walked out the door.

**6:00 am**

Lizzie came to fetch me for the wedding.

The car came to fetch us at seven.

Neither of us talked much on the ride there.

I think we were nervous.

Now I know why.

_It's all right. It's all right. It _will _be all right, I promise. The final chapter goes up within a week._


	13. Chapter 13

The wedding of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes took place on a temperate morning, at a vineyard one hundred kilometers north-west of London.

The weather was a perfect twenty-three degrees, with full sun, and a soft, easterly breeze. The sky was laced with clouds.

And a little over five hours before the wedding, John Watson woke alone.

...

The good doctor opened his eyes to dawn light. The first thing he did was feel his cock. It was soft.

The second thing he did was deduce that Sherlock was not in bed with him, or else his cock would probably have been in Sherlock.

The third thing John did was feel Sherlock's side of the bed.

Cold.

The fourth and most vital thing John did was put his hand over his heart because it was suddenly fucking hammering. "It's all right," he said. "It's fine."

And yes, yep, sure thing, even though everything was _absolutely_ a-okay, John still yanked the duvet aside, bounded from the bed, swore for after stubbing his toe on his own god damn ankle, and looked at the clock. Half six.

And even though everything was still fine, yes indeed, quite all right, you bet, John trip-stumbled into pajama bottoms, yanked on a t-shirt and looked around for the key to the cottage but he couldn't find the damn key to the cottage but that was fine, didn't matter, because the bed was fucking _cold,_ all right? It was cold and it wasn't yet full light outside and John's been with Sherlock long enough to know, to know _exactly_ why all of this is extra-special _not_ all right, and not one bit of fine.

So John gave up on the key and shoes and a coat and he yanked open the cottage door so hard it flew from his hand and into the wall, startling a flock of doves in the front garden and two vintners on a nearby path.

And John had already scattered the birds and run past the people before he realised he had no idea where he was going and so he about-faced and ran to the wine makers. "Dark-haired bloke. Slim. Tall. Scared."

They pointed in the direction John'd already been going and so the good doctor set off again but it turned out he didn't have far to go because just ahead Sherlock sat cross-legged on a low rise, hair a bed-head riot, skin luminous in pale morning light, a beauty surrounded by beauty, because this winery? Like every one John's been to this one was faultless. There's something about a place given to the growing of grapes that brings out the picturesque in a hillside, the rustic in a building, the charm in everything.

"You little fucking fuck, you scared me half to death."

Almost everyone.

Sherlock turned. Sherlock looked. And then Sherlock did that thing he does, his gaze flick-flicked here there everywhere, it gathered data from the corner of a mouth, the twitch of an ear, a nostril flare, pinch of brow, and he collated, concluded…and reached up.

And that's when it happened.

John's last, very last lone brave strong sturdy amazing overwrought exhausted strung-tight trod-on nerve, the one he's been pampering and protecting for two so-long weeks, well that thing just finally went and god damn gave way. The good doctor crumpled to the ground, slumped against Sherlock, and said absolutely nothing.

For long, silent seconds all they did was _need_ each other, and then they both breathed deep, but only Sherlock let his breathe out in words.

"You lost a million pounds worth of diamonds in the Thames last month," he began.

A flock of doves tiptoed around the grass in front of them.

"The month before that you ruined three experiments vital to clearing Constable Bamba's name."

The sun peaked over a nearby hillside.

"You run slower, think slower, and swear more quickly than me, and in general have a host of irrational and irritating behaviours that you'd do well to change."

A shaft of warm light nibbled up the hillside and John knew where this was going.

"But what if you never do John? _What if you never change?"_

Sherlock stroked the top of John's foot with the bottom of his own.

"Do you know what would happen then?"

John knew what would happen.

"I'd still love you with all my heart," Sherlock said, wriggling crazy prehensile toes between his fiancé's. "So why do I keep thinking you won't do the same for me?"

John watched Sherlock's restless toes do strange things to his toes.

"Because nothing heals all at once," said the good doctor. "Healing takes its own sweet time."

John slipped his hand beneath Sherlock's and said, "It's time."

...

The sun had at last fully risen over the nearby hill, committing whole-heartedly to blazing. Their little hillside was bright and glowing green.

"It happens right here," John said, patting the tiny rise on which they sat, a sweet little roll on a hill that itself was on another hill. "Just a half dozen feet there? That's where our guests will stand."

Sherlock put on his thinking face. Realised he'd forgotten many of the facts about their ceremony because he never knew them, having buggered and been buggered right on through their rehearsal dinner. "The guests stand?"

"They do. Remember what we talked about? An informal formality. So there won't be a procession, no children scattering flowers, just you and me and very near a dozen or so people who love us."

John pointed in the other direction, toward a tiny rise upon their rise. "And there is where the vicar stands."

Sherlock clenched his toes round John's. He knew where this was going.

John grinned. "And right here, on this spot that you must have picked by instinct or luck or deduction, this is where we go from, well, lovers to life-mates."

Sherlock's heart thrummed when John plucked his left hand from the grass, played with its delicate, strong fingers while saying softly, "Sherlock Holmes, will you marry me and love me and warn me before you put poison in the fridge?"

Sherlock took a deep breath and held it, as if waiting for his fingers to reply. In a way they did, taking John's hands and pressing them against the fast flutter in his chest. "Yes." he said, then asked those fine hands, "Will you please marry me John, please? Forever?"

It had been a long week. A long two years. A long _lifetime_ searching for a place that was home. Both of these men are aware that always does not always last but that that doesn't matter. _Now_ is what matters and every day can be lived like forever.

John turned his hands, so they were clasped tight in Sherlock's. "Yes, I will."

Sherlock started to cry.

A few minutes later he got confused about whose arm was whose and wiped his nose across John's wrist. John didn't complain.

A few minutes after that they lay down on the grass and one of them said to the other, "I think we're a little bit married now."

"Yes."

There was silence.

"But we're still going to do it in tuxedos and with cake?"

"Hell yes. I did not go through this last week only to get married in jim-jams."

"Good."

There was sniffing.

"Blow. You have to blow."

There ensued some unsanitary things involving the grass. There was a complaint from one side, and then a defense regarding lack of tissues from the other. A small argument resolved itself once they scooted to the left, which was better anyway because that spot was sunnier.

There followed some quiet contemplation while pale English skin began gently burning. And then…

"Do you think the sex is going to be normal now?"

Contemplation. "Define normal."

More quiet contemplation. Then…

"I'm not going to get an erection because you accidentally got off by trying to get me off by fellating my toothbrush."

Both men lifted their heads, looked down their bodies to pajama bottoms untented.

"It seems so."

Quiet for awhile, then Sherlock released his fiancé's hand and spider-walked fingers up John's belly and then down John's—

"Not here. I'm not _that_ much of an exhibitionist, you exhibitionist. Besides…"

John exhibited a certain amount of exhibitionistic patience while Sherlock slid his hand off John's cock by sliding all over it first.

"…uh, besides, I want to associate this spot with heartfelt tenderness, not with me blushing to my hairline because Mrs. Hudson comes along and sees my hard-on."

"Mrs. Hudson's already seen your—"

"Not the point I'm making."

Sherlock rolled on to his belly and got so close to John their noses touched. He closed his eyes and held his breath until he felt John breathe. And then he whispered "It's time."

...

They drew the soft, heavy curtains. They left off all the lights. They stripped and burrowed deep beneath a snowy duvet and in the warmth and the dark there they breathed.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands of ways to be intimate, and through their long marriage John and Sherlock will try just about every one. Some will linger, some won't, all of them will bring them closer when closer they need to be.

"I need you."

Sherlock dragged out the words, huffed them, each a wash of hot breath that John took into his mouth, that he breathed in deep.

"I love you."

Again, said slow and gusty, a pant, a push of heat and moisture, _nourishment_ into John's hungry mouth.

"I want you."

The words were delivered right into John by the press of Sherlock's lips and tongue, they were underscored by the tremors of his warm body, italicised by the erection against John's thighs.

John reached, took hold of Sherlock as Sherlock straddled him.

When he settled, elbows either side of John's head, bellies and chest close but not touching, John reached for his own erection, until one hand circled them both.

It's rare that one of them strokes both of them off. It's a pleasure perhaps sexier in contemplation than practice, but without words they agreed that this was what they wanted today, a very literal joining.

While John stroked Sherlock tucked his face against his sweetheart's neck and again he breathed words wet and hot against John's skin, a rambling array of everything he'd never known how to say just right and so did not say.

"Want…ever. Need…always. Run and sleep and hold and be held. Everything you need…mmmm…anything you need. I can. I will. I will, John. I'll always try, I'll…god…I'll try, please let me, p-please."

John pulled Sherlock close by the back of his neck, made them both go still.

The good doctor doesn't talk nearly as much as Sherlock, but he feels as much, wants and needs and hopes as much.

"I came back from the dead once…" John hummed, squirmed a little in his own hand. "…and more than once wondered why. And then there you were, beautiful and bright, and every day since then I _know _why. To want and need, to be wanted and needed. To try and fail, to laugh and love."

John began moving his hand again, firmer, faster, pressed the other to Sherlock's cheek until their mouths met in a kiss.

Their hair triggers were gone but the passion was not, so John stroked and they breathed, and there were more words and kisses, and eventually one of them came with a low groan, and then a minute later so did the other, and they quickly dissolved into giggles when belly met belly met slick wet warm combined come and what was usually cleaned off wasn't because, just because, but later, they'd do it then, when they…when they…when…

...

Mrs. Hudson found them an hour later, sound asleep, a bed-head riot of dark curls and a swipe of sandy blonde just peaking from beneath a snowy duvet.

Lizzie did not wake them. She hung up their beautiful grey tuxedoes, settled in the front garden on a pretty swinging settee, and there she leisurely thought about things she'd done and wished she'd done and things she's had and wished she had, and she knew that life's a funny old thing and sometimes things don't work out just right, but if you're lucky you get to see that thing work for someone else. And that's almost as good. In some ways it can be better.

"I love you," she said, toasting her boys with a fine glass of bubbly, and then my dear girl began humming.

...

I've already told you about John and Sherlock's wedding ceremony.

Told you about the vows and vomit, the realisations, the rings, the bees. I've told you all about this beginning, one of so many they'll have.

Of course you know of their very first beginning, everyone does. The meeting of doctor and detective in a hospital lab. The moment two thirty-something men first stood in the same room, looked one another in the eye, and thought, "Maybe it'll work. Can't hurt to try."

And that's the key isn't it? Trying. You can't stop trying because that's when the dying begins, John'll tell you that. He never did pick up his gun, not _that _way, but he looked at it more than once. Looked and imagined, imagined the aftermath, the absence of pain, the done, the over, the relief.

But John never did more than imagine, instead John kept trying.

For his part Sherlock's been trying since he first drew breath. Trying to prove himself, trying to pretend he wasn't trying to prove himself, trying to belong, to not care that he didn't, trying to focus that great brain, trying to do more, be more, see more, know, go, say, tell, want, need…

…_stop._

Stop, stop. Sorry. I'm going to stop there, with that.

And start again.

Because the ending of this was meant to be about beginnings, about their many beginnings, of which this wedding's only one.

The next one? The next big beginning for John and Sherlock? It came the day after these fine spring nuptials, when they boarded a plane to Australia to start a honeymoon that would itself have within it new beginnings.

The first one, the most important beginning there, was them falling in love again. Or still. Or more. I guess it's all in how you look at it. And _it_ was them walking on fine Aussie sands, daring one another into the cold sea, _it_ was laughing and fucking and learning yes indeed, they could love each other bigger, better, sloppier, sweeter, again and again.

The other thing that began during that honeymoon was the legend. Oh they'd long since become something a bit mythic in their home town, but it was the Aboriginal art case that took them from Canberra to Sydney to Shanghai—and the international press coverage that resulted—that eventually brought them to the attention of the wider world.

When they got back home there were more beginnings big and small.

Sherlock's blog began finally getting some traction—thanks to John at last figuring out how to link to it from _his_ blog.

Sherlock began more regularly remembering that he and Mycroft were no longer arch-enemies, a fact he'd known for some time but one which became more important when Mycroft began dating a certain grey-haired friend.

John began a garden, then a cooking class, a woodworking class, a wine appreciation class. He quit them all, realising that being married didn't suddenly mean he was interested in any of these snug and domestic pursuits.

Sherlock began growing his own garden in John's abandoned plot, and he did rather well for awhile, until his husband put an end to that beginning when he learned the wee patch contained hemlock, monkshood, oleander, and a half a dozen other poisonous plants.

About six years after they married they began taking cases requiring more brain work, less leg work. The shift was slow and those closest to them attributed the change to what happened to them during the catacombs case, but no one ever asked and the boys never said.

Twelve years after they married John began turning his first book—_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes—_into a screenplay, but the good doctor discovered he knew nothing about writing screenplays and cared even less.

Fifteen years after marrying they began vacationing in Sussex twice a year, after Sherlock became friends with a beekeeper in Brighton. They're still talking about buying her cottage after she retires, something she's beginning to threaten, again.

There will be many beginnings for my boys, so many I'll happily lose count. And, as with most of us, most of the things they begin will fade quietly away…and they'll begin something else. And then something else. And then another thing and another.

But there will be a constant, a never-changing certainty, and it began all those years ago: Where there is Sherlock there is John. Where there is John there is Sherlock.

World without end.


End file.
